A Birthday Post (belated)

Alas, our trip has come to an end, but we still have a few more stories to share.  Enjoy.

In celebration of Jason’s birthday we continued our walking tour of the city.  We returned to the Boquiera for omelets-the first and only time we had eggs for breakfast in europe, apparently that’s an American thing.  Jason’s birthday, for those of you who did not know (including Jason and Julie) is also international museum day.  This fact proved handy when we were give free admission into the Picasso Museum – a great retrospective in his work before and after psychotropic drugs.

We then had a lovely seaside lunch at Can Majo in Barconleta.  Barconleta is like another city entirely with a beach resort feel.  We enjoyed the sights of the Mediterranian while sating ourselves with seafood paella and white wine (yes, white wine – it was hot out).  For future travelers, this is not an inexpensive lunch, but one you should budget for all the same.

After lunch we made our way along the beach to the gondola tower that would shuttle us above the city to Montjuc. Julie did a wonderful job overcoming her strong dislike of heights as we were towed across the towers.  Montjuc is a mountain over looking the city with museums, fortresses and gardens, a great way to spend an afternoon.

That evening, we ate at restaurant Gaig in the Eixample area of town.  Chef Gaig was recently awarded a michelan star fo his work at this small 12 table restaurant in the Cramm Hotel.  He does a lovely job modernizing traditional Catalan cuisine without losing sight of its origins.  We enjoyed a Catalan rendition on double pork chin and partridge.  But the real star of the night was again the carrots.  As an appetizer we had the foie gras with a carrot and orange marmalade.  At first we were disappointed we couldn’t have the fig marmalade (it was out of season), but we should have learned our lesson from Florence- high end carrots are tasty.  Really tasty.

We’d be remiss not to mention the desserts, though.  Usually we order things both of us would enjoy and share dishes- this way we get to experience more.  But there were two dessert offerings that spoke to each of us–  for Jason, a plate of chocolate.  Dark chocolate truffles, carmelized chocolate wafers, chocolate ice cream, and salted chocolate powder (julie’s hands down favorite on the plate).  It was a chocolate extravaganza.  For Julie, ginger cream between anise strings.  The smell alone was fantastic and very reminicent of Christmas time pizzelles.  The ginger cream was just sweet enough to cut through the anise and it was a light and delicious way to end the meal.

The service was fantastic- first, our waiter told us where we could buy the wine we were drinking (a fantastic 2006 Monsant — two bottles are coming home with us!), and then Chef Gaig himself came out to greet each of the tables.  A nice touch we had yet to see. We gave him some smiles and nods as his English seemed to be just as good as our Catalan, but we think he understood that we enjoyed the meal.