Barcelona, now

[ketan]

Any strutters living in Barca at the moment? (Duder?) In town for the week, staying right down by the water/La Rambla. Any reccos on super nice (not necessarily expensive) places to eat and events/happenings. Would love to meet up and buy a drink or three if anyone is about.

Bonus: Anyone else going to this Lurv Rave near Girona on the weekend??

 

[Duderonomy]

I'm up the coast for a couple of days but I'll be back by Friday (I think).

Food.
Cova Fumada in Barcelonetta for lunch is a very nice tapas/seafood experience (check online for loc and opening times). If you get there and it's closed/full, the bar next to it on the corner is also very good.
Another place I was going to recommend closed recently but the chef has just opened a new place: My Fucking Restaurant
http://www.myfuckingrestaurant.com/
El Disbarat near Fontana metro on carrer Montseny does great Catalan food (meat cooked over a wood fire).
Carrer Blai for pinchos & beers (Poble Sec metro) is very nice pedestrian street full of bars and outside tables.

Im a bit drunk right now but more places will come to me! Keep an eye on this thread.

 

[ketan]

Nice, thanks!

 

[Duderonomy]

Craft/artisan beer is so hot right now in BCN.
Garage Bar http://garagebeer.co/en/

A few others mentioned here:
https://www.timeout.com/barcelona/bars-and-pubs/best-craft-beer-bars-in-barcelona

Gin & Tonic is also something they take very seriously here. Just been at a bar with 130 GnT combos... easy enough to find a bar in BCN offering a good selection.
One of my favourite cocktail bars (which also has a decent music policy) is called El Ciclista in Gracia
https://www.google.es/maps/place//data=!4m2!3m1!1s0x12a4a296440b3641:0xc78e8266af82ee37?sa=X&dcr=0

 

[skel]

That train line tho

talmboit Barna Sants like a dude know wtf they mean

hatef it
ended up in some random town
:

 

[ketan]

skel said:

That train line tho

talmboit Barna Sants like a dude know wtf they mean

hatef it
ended up in some random town
:



It's okay to hate a train line.

I'm pretty blown away by the city. It's like a mix between new york and mumbai.

Are there any good documentaries about the history of flamenco? I'm finding some interesting flix that demonstrate the culture (incl Latcho Drom and this https://www.nfb.ca/film/flamenco_at_515/) but looking to learn more about the origins.

 

[foe]

try the croissants at the forn at placa del pedro, only authentic croissants in town. nice as a snack. close to it you have a nice and cozy restaurant called Rabipelao raval.
https://www.google.es/maps/place/Rabipelao+Raval+%2F+Arepas+y+cocteles+tropicales/@41.3800657,2.1648972,340m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m8!1m2!2m1!1sglories+kebab!3m4!1s0x0:0x2d9f0fc6431fc9a5!8m2!3d41.3804398!4d2.1643288

the indian is horrible here, i've switched to moroccan.

my budget is usually on the low side, that limits my suggestions some.
also it is the south american places that impresses me here, not used to it where i'm from. maybe not that exotic to you. there are great restaurants everywhere in barcelona. do as duderomy suggests and get up to Gracia.

 

[Duderonomy]

It's not very often that I encounter an alcohol that I've never tried before, but the Catalans have a drink called Ratafia you won't find elsewhere in Spain let alone Europe. Sweet liqueur that's great with some ice.

Also keep an eye out for bodegas that sell vermouth from the barrel - another quintessential Catalan activity (usually around 11am but any time can be vermouth time in my books).

 

[Duderonomy]

foe said:
the indian is horrible here, i've switched to moroccan.





There is a Pakistani place in the Raval that does good curry with heat. Only place I've found so far!

 

[ketan]

FWIW, we bought some legit veggie samosas and chai from a Pakistani man in the park the other day.

 

[foe]

Duderonomy said:



foe said:
the indian is horrible here, i've switched to moroccan.





There is a Pakistani place in the Raval that does good curry with heat. Only place I've found so far!



do they have the good naan aswell? i'm fiending for some proper coriander naan.

 

[Duderonomy]

foe said:



Duderonomy said:



foe said:
the indian is horrible here, i've switched to moroccan.





There is a Pakistani place in the Raval that does good curry with heat. Only place I've found so far!



do they have the good naan aswell? i'm fiending for some proper coriander naan.








Yes, but you can also get reasonable naan in Joaquin Costa (near MACBA). The place with blue and white tiling around the door, on the left as you walk downhill - they do kebabs but also curry (although not particularly hot), and they cook the naan there on one of those round stones. It's good.

 

[Duderonomy]

D'oh - Ketan, I forgot to show you the Cat Zoo round the back of le Boquerria. I really have low weed tolerance these days

 

[Duderonomy]

Foe - the Pakistani restaurant I was talking about is on carrer del Marques de Barbera. Let me know if you want to meet up for a meal there as my girlfriend is typically averse to spicy-hot food.

 

[ketan]

Duderonomy said:

D'oh - Ketan, I forgot to show you the Cat Zoo round the back of le Boquerria. I really have low weed tolerance these days



Cat Zoo?! Sounds wild. Thanks again for the gift, tho. The Love Rave was a bit wet but really, really fun times...

In case anyone else in the city/visiting reads this, we tested out My Fucking Restaurant and it was GREAT. We did a tapas tasting menu and almost everything was revelatory in some way. Even the olives made me re-think olives. Only the mussels were :ehh:.

 

[Duderonomy]

Ketan, you're missing all the action. It's maybe not headline news ATM with earthquakes, hurricanes and rocketbwoy, but there's a potential revolution/secession on the cards for Catalunya, and if Madrid shows it's fascist roots, maybe some civil war/military intervention to look forward to.

Few of the opinion pieces I read mention that the shadow of Franco looms large and the constitution drawn up by the military was a joke, both sides respective political establishments have corruption issues that are handily obscured by the referendum issue (office fire in Valencia anyone?), and this referendum could polarise society here whatever the result.

Whole thing is a bad look, but without question I fail to comprehend how Madrid could deal with it any worse - Rajoy's latest speech admonished the Catalans for being DISOBEDIENT! It's like he's trying to make them more angry. I have to believe he's antagonizing them to justify crushing dissent.

 

[ketan]

We recently spent time in Ille-sur-tet (Catalan France) and Ascain (Basque France), and I was fascinated by how these communities in France had a (seemingly) harmonious form of independence within the state... but those same regions in Spain have been fighting for independence for ages. I was curious why the difference (I'm pretty ignorant of French/Spanish history), but someone explained that it's basically . Quite an interesting case study of politics and diversity... and doesn't seem to be over yet!

 

[foe]

i think france works hard to assimilate everyone, which makes a bad immigrant policy, but maybe is more effective in keeping resident communities?

 

[klezmer electro-thug beats]

I've been watching the referendum stuff in Spain a bit, surely not as closely as Duder though. I'm in two minds about nationalist/self determination movements. I think the concerns of the people who want independence are often valid, like having some different societal values from the government that rules them (Scotland, Basque) or historical fucked-ness (like Ireland). But at the same time I'd rather the UK became a more just place than only Scotland getting the better governance, and so on internationally. But we don't live in that world. And if anything, the re-emergence of nationalist movements is a symptom of greater problems with the structure of these societies.

Anyway down to brass tacks: what's this shit about a cat zoo in Barca?? Is that like the cat boat in Amsterdam?

 

[Duderonomy]

Here's a good (admittedly long) article that gives some context:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/may/29/national-museum-spanish-civil-war-barcelona

It's an obviously complicated history, but the present reality for many Catalans is that Spain's elite still carry the family names of people who went to bed as fascist murderers and woke up as law-abiding democrats.