Eldiset

6 December 2021

Previously-

Showered. I sit down feeling better. Exhausted and happy.

Hungry.

It’s lunchtime and dinner time and almost breakfast.

I peer out the window. Is that a tapas bar across the lane?

I have eaten at tapas bars. I have never eaten in a tapas bar in Spain.

We get changed. It is nice to wear pants and a jacket and still be cold.

I melted in KL. Every day. Melted.

Down the stairs, across the road.

Eldiset.

It is 5.00 pm. The lunch crowd has left and the dinner crowd yet to arrive.

The wine list is impressive. All local. Six by the glass. All inexpensive. I have never heard of any.

Shell looks stunning. I have not seen her in winter clothes for three years.

I imagine pasta is different in Italy. Burgundy is different in Dijon. I remember the chai was different in Rajasthan. Food tastes of a place.

Does tapas taste different in Barcelona?

“Food is everything we are. It’s an extension of nationalist feeling, ethnic feeling, your personal history, your province, your region, your tribe, your grandma. It’s inseparable from those from the get-go.” – Anthony Bourdain.

I sound like a wanker. I am a bit.

The food was amazing. 

Croquettes with romesco, a big plate of jamòn with crusty bread and slow-cooked tomatoes, octopus, and some ceviche.

It all sounds pretty standard. It wasn’t. It was excellent.

We limited ourselves to a glass of wine. Aware that the time was 5.00 pm, but our jet-lagged brains thought it was 1.00 am.

In the end, we tried all six. Like food, wine has a sense of place. Even more so?

I am told these wines were local. All from small, family ran vineyards. They were perfect with the food and the place.

2017 Celler Can Serra dels Exibis

2015 Celler Cedó Anguera Clonic

2019 Celler Testuan Xirà

2014 Celler Puiggros Sentitis Negres

NV Celler Cal Pla

Welcome to Barcelona.