So today was another food tour, but this time to the Sants area of Barcelona. Sants is a former industrial area that is rarely visited by tourists. The area has a large immigrant population and the food scene is tranditional Catalonian.
I met Pam, our guide for the day, and 6 others (one from the Philippines, two from Boston, and three from Indiana by way of a myriad of states) at exactly 9:00 a.m. in Sants, about 20 minutes by cab from my hotel. After introductions and a bit of an overview of what we would be doing for the 5 plus hour tour, we set off for our first stop Casa Vives, a bakery that dates to 1895 and is still run by the descendants of the original founders. The bakery was located on a little side street not far from our meeting point.
Once we found our reserved table near the back of the shop, we placed our “coffee orders” and since I do not drink coffee, I ordered a horchata (that chocolaty/nutty drink I had on my food tour a couple days ago).
After the drinks arrived, we were served two pastries. The first was ensaïmada, a light fluffy lard based pastry covered in powdered sugar (it was actually quite light and not at all sweet). The second pastry was something called a braid, which was an egg washed pastry filled with an apple mixture. The braid was far and away superior to the ensaïmada.
So after enjoying our morning breakfast of coffee (or horchata) and pastries, we took a stroll through the neighborhood, passing through Parc Espanya Industial, the park that had been created on an industrial site near the Barcelona Sants train station, which I had passed on Sunday. The park was beautiful with a little lake, statutes and a nearby kindergarten.
We then climbed some stairs and walked around the back of the train station and down another narrow street past a gorgeous mural dedicated to the working class in the Sants neighborhood. And just down the street from the mural we entered Bar Bodega Bardoli. Now bodegas are traditional wine bars in Spain, but have morphed into neighborhood breakfast and lunch bars.
And Bar Bodega Bardoli was the quintessential neighborhood establishment run by an elderly lady, who I dubbed the queen of the neighborhood. Everyone who came into the place made a pit stop at the back to say hi to her. I really wanted to take her picture, but thought it might be rude so left the matriarch alone.
I took a wander around before sitting down and absolutely fell in love with the place. It was one of those places where everyone knew everyone and the proprietors know what your want to order before you even sit down. I think the closest thing we would have to this kind of establishment is a neighborhood dive bar. Bar Bodega Bardoli was awesome.
Anyway, once we were seated, we were served second breakfast or breakfast with a fork as they sometime refer to it. (In Spain, the eating times are denoted as early breakfast (coffee and a pastry), second breakfast, lunch (which usually commences around 2:00 and is the heaviest meal of the day), tapas time (any time after 6:00) and dinner (usually between 9 and 11).
So first up was a glass of wine. Seriously! These folks either have a glass of wine or beer with their second breakfast. We were then served a fabulous plate of scrambled eggs with ham and mushrooms and fricandeau (fried beef in lard cooked at a low temperature and served with a mushroom sauce).
I absolutely loved the scrambled eggs. In fact, by the end of the day, the scrambled eggs were hands down my favourite food of the tour. Now the fricandeau was also pretty darn good although it seemed a little weird to be eating fried beef at 10:30 in the morning.
Anyway, after enjoying our food and wine, we sadly moved on walking past Mercat de Sants (the Sants Market) before hitting up our next stop: Fondevila. This store has apparently been in operation since 1912 and specializes in hard to find meats and cheeses from Northern Spain and Catalonia. In fact, Pam said that the proprietor has contacts with all the small farms in the north and Fondevila is the first to be contacted when a cheese or meet comes on the market.
After we made our way to the back of the store, we found a table all set up for us. Once seated, we were served tomato bread (bread rubbed with olive oil and tomato that is served literally everywhere in Barcelona) along with three kinds of cheese and two kinds of meat.
The cheeses served were quite different with the first being a pasteurized goat milk cheese, the second being a nonpasturized cow’s milk cheese known as
and the third being a nonpasteurized sheep’s milk cheese known as sunkeedy, which had been aged for 40 months.
Now the first cheese wasn’t bad, and was actually a favourite of most of the group. The second cheese was really, really stinky and had a very strong bite. I don’t think anyone really liked this cheese. The third cheese, in my opinion, was far and away the class of the three. The cheese was strong, but not overpowering and did not have an overbearing bite like the second cheese.
And the two types of sausages were both outstanding. The first was a cured meat know as loganiza from Vic in northern Spain while the second was a cooked sausage known as botifarra catalana and was infused with truffles. YUM.
Once we were finished at Fondevila, we walked across the narrow lane to Mercat de Sants, one of 39 food markets in Barcelona. We wandered around the market taking in all the gorgeous fruit, vegetable and meat stands. I was particularly fascinated by the meat stand where butchers were taking whole chickens and using what looked like large garden shears to slice up the chicken, take out the innards and
debone the meat. It was quite the unique way to cut up a chicken.
My other favourite stands were the fishmonger stands. The array of seafood available at these stands was extraordinary. Every kind of fish and shellfish was on display. If I ever came back to Barcelona, I would rent an apartment and go to the market every day and buy up the seafood to cook back at the apartment. The choices were something else.
Anyway, after wandering around, we made a stop at the Bacallaneria, which is a salted cod stand that included a few other types of fish. (Every market has a salted cod stand, which is a very popular dish in Spain and Portugal.) Now surprisingly, we did not try the salted cod, but instead, Pam ordered some slices of dried tuna loin that had been salted and cured. And while I love tuna (cooked and in sushi and sashimi), I was not at all fond of this version. I thought it was too salty and overwhelmed what is normally a lovely and unique tuna flavour.
After the tuna, we walked around a bit more before stopping at Montero, a food stand with more prepared foods than I could count. A table had been set up for us and we were served legumes with sausage and spinach with raisins and pine nuts. Unfortunately, I was not a big fan of either dish (despite the fact that I love spinach). And I am still not sure why they dishes were chosen given the enormous array of prepared dishes that were for sale at Montero. I would have loved to have tried the gazpacho which looked yummy, but sadly we were stuck with what I thought were bland legumes and sausage and watery spinach salad.
Once we left the market, we wandered by more artwork on the walls of the buildings in Sants before reaching Bar Bodega Salvat. Now here, we were going to try the vermouth. And to date, I have tried two different types of vermouth. The first was not bad, the second was no particularly good, and this vermouth … absolutely God awful. I took one taste, made a face and pushed it away. Thanks, but no. Life is too short to drink swill. And this was most definitely swill. Yuck.
The only upside to this stop was that we were served almonds that had been roasted in olive oil (yummy) and anchovies with red sauce and green olives. The anchovies were actually quite good, but the highlight was far and away the green olives.
So once everyone had finished their glasses of vermouth (I was apparently the only one who hated the drink) we left Bar Bodega Salvat and walked a few blocks to a small restaurant with an outdoor seating area known as Tramendu.
Pam ended up ordering four different dishes and quite frankly, I wasn’t particularly impressed with the dishes. The first was a salt cured cod salad with tomatoes and olives. And while the tomatoes and olives were quite good, the cod was a little mushy for my taste.
The second dish was an antipasto salad with olives, artichokes, sundried tomatoes and onions. This may have been my favourite dish, although I did have to work around the large raw onions (not an onion fan). The sundried tomatoes and the olives were outstanding.
The third dish was beef and seafood meatballs. I did not like this dish at all. It seemed to be a very weird combination with the meat taking on a seafood flavour and just making it an all around weird taste. Not a fan.
The final dish was a baked pork cheek. This was actually quite good, although I found the meat a tad too salty. All in all, I was not impressed with Tramendu.
Our last stop of the day was Bomboneria Pons where we were going to have some chocolate tastings. Now in order to reach Bomboneria Pons, we had to walk through Parc de Can Batllo, a community park that was filled with basketball and pickleball courts, workout facilities, skateboard jumps and neighborhood gardens in buildings that had once been industrial manufacturing facilities. And for a monthly fee, members of the community can use the park and all of its amenities. It was an absolutely brilliant idea.
Anyway, after we passed through the park, we walked back in the direction of our meeting point this morning and made a stop at Bomboneria Pons. Once we entered, the smell of chocolate absolute overwhelmed. We ended up tasting a chocolate covered orange rind, a chocolate covered walnut, a chocolate covered corn nut and a chocolate covered wafer. All were delicious, but I did not feel the need to buy anything.
From here, we wandered back up the street to our original meeting point. I then found a taxi and took the taxi back through rush hour traffic (by now it was almost 3:30) to the Gothic Quarter and my hotel. Tomorrow, it is another road trip out of Barcelona to the ancient city of Girona and the Costa Brava.