[Ping Pig Time Machine by Wilfrid: July 13, 2009]
London again. It never stopped. Back and forth, back and forth, like taking the bus. Ah, but a mid-summer side-trip to Barcelona to follow. What a treat.
Usually business took me to London, but this was actually a holiday trip, dutifully following up on some friends in the U.K., one the mother of new-born twins, before heading on to Catalunya.
I read the Barcelona novelist Eduardo Mendoza for the first time on the trans-Atlantic flight, City of Marvels, and checked into Hazlitt's Hotel on SoHo's Frith Street before an aperitif at the Coach and Horses. I had already figured out that The Ivy, notoriously a hard reservation, was the easiest place in the world to eat dinner - if you were coming into town on the daytime flight from JFK. This arrived about eight in the evening, London time. By eleven local time - closing time for London pubs - my body-clock had reached 6pm. An early dinner-hour, but not an impossible one, and The Ivy opened late.
After a glass of champagne, I ate a simply watercress salad tossed with slivers of crispy duck. The Ivy did smartened-up English comfort food as well as anywhere, and so I ordered a ham hock with mustard mashed potatoes to follow and a side of marrow - essentially a sort of squash - roasted with fresh thyme. Then another national treasure, sticky toffee pudding.
By coincidence - given the Bacon retrospective currently running at the Met - I saw some rarely shown pictures from the estate at the Faggionato Gallery the next morning after espresso at Bar Italia. In the evening, after Bradley's Irish Bar, Chinatown beckoned. Peking Duck, eel cooked in honey and rice with char siu.
And that was it for London town, as I took the short, three-plus hour flight to La Barca next day and checked into the Oriente on Las Ramblas. Immediately to Amaya for tapas and bottles of San Miguel. That is a place to avoid now, but it was one of the better central tapas bars ten years ago.
For dinner, Bar Mundial. This place is now in every guidebook as a destination for seafood tapas, but believe me, when I first found it by accident in a dimly lit backstreet of El Born, it was a local joint unknown to tourists. Indeed, it was a fairly slovenly and drunken locals joint - but the food was already excellent. Great bundles of razor clams thrown on the grill, toasted bread streaked with tomatoes and anchovies, slices of mojama. The evening dwindled into a bar crawl around Passeig del Born.
My diary reminds me of one other important fact. Ten years ago, a large, well-known, mid-priced hotel like the Oriente had no air-conditioning.
I walked around the old town next morning, visiting the Cathedral and the city museum and visiting a "Gothic Barcelona" exhibition in the ancient Saló del Tinell. My favorite restaurant, Ateneu Gastronómic, was the dining choice. This place is also still open, and absolutely to be avoided now. Ten years ago, it was run by an affably studious anarchist and his wife, dedicated to showcasing local produce - and wines - long before it was fashionable, as well as recreating cuisine from the city's history.
The meal started with a wide selection of artisanal sausages sourced locally, with slices of tomato-rubbed bread. Next was pheasant, stuffed with bolets - wild mushrooms - in a wine and cream sauce. Then some local roast venison. A 1989 Raimat Abadía Reserva, from the Costers del Segre D.O. just inland from Barcelona, was a good accompaniment. And then some goat cheese with tomato marmalade, and a glass of moscatel. A good preparation for a late night at Bar Pastis.
At least one day on any extended trip to Barcelona is always dedicated to Gaudí. I climbed from Palau Güell, past the Esquina de la Discordia and La Pedrera, on up to Parc Güell, then back down via the Sagrada Familia to a deserved siesta. A Raoul Dufuy retrospective was worth seeing at the Picasso Museum, which left me well placed for early evening refreshment at El Xampanyet, almost next door.
This so-called "champagne" bar, with beautiful tiled walls, is a family business with odd opening hours. It serves little cups of rough, sweet, artisanal cava - evidence, if any is needed, that "artisanal" is not cognate with "good". I prefer the cider, with excellent montaditos - rounds of bread topped with anchovies or tortilla or butifarra or ham. A short walk back past Santa Maria del Mar brought me to La Pulpería, the veteran Galician seafood bar, for chewy pigs ears and heaping helpings of fried calamares and cfab claws.
I can't remember why, but my stay at Citadines, the hotel-apartment just across the Ramblas, began a few days after my arrival. Perhaps I couldn't get in any earlier. In any case, I like to have a kitchen if I am anywhere near La Boquería. In any case, I ate out again that evening. Following tapas at El Portalón, a walk down to the seafront and a terrace table at the Palau del Mar. Pescaditos - what I called "whitebait" growing up; tiny fried fish eaten whole with a squeeze of lemon - were followed by a full-scale seafood paella, and a bottle of cava. Late night in a cocktail bar on Josep Anselm Clave, and so to bed.
The beach was visited the next morning, but the sun proved too hot to stand on. I finally shopped at La Boquería, then cooked in the apartment. Testicles, I'm afraid, sliced and sautéed in a white wine sauce. The poached quails with rice, Drinks later at Els Quats Gats. And much more to come from Spain, next week.
