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 Barcelona
- Restaurants, hotels, bars and variety theatres
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Barcelona has restaurants to suit every taste and pocket.
Most are located in Old Barcelona and El Ensanche. The most
expensive can be found in El Ensanche
and the residential area, whilst those frequented by young people are located
in Gracia and La Ribera. Restaurants specialising in fish are found in La Barceloneta.
The most typical are the "tabernas Catalanas" (Catalan inns) which
offer traditional home cooking. Modern restaurants have been set up by young
university students specialising in the "nouvelle cuisine". The inns
offer quantity and home cooking whereas the modern restaurants offer selection,
imagination and extravagance. Between these two extremes there is also a very
wide selection. There are two important and long established restaurants. One
is "Can cullaretes" in Quintana street and the other is "Les Set
Portes" in the Plaça del Palau. Foreign restaurants include Arab,
Argentinian, Korean, Japanese, German, French, Chinese, etc.
The main Catalan dishes include "escudella i carn d´olla"· (vegetable,
stew, rice, noodles and potatoes served as a soup), followed by "el cocido" (stew)
with haricot beans, "botifarra" (Catalan sausage), "pilota" (minced
beef), bread, eggs and selected spices. Valencian "paella" comes
under the name of "arros a la cassola". "La Zarzuela" is
a dish consisting of monk fish, grouper, prawns or king prawns, squid and mussels.
If lobsters used instead of king prawns it is known as "opera", "Suqet
de peix" is another dish containing a variety of fish. Other typical dishes
include "bacalla a la Llauna" (cod cooked and seasoned in a metal
boiling-pan), "faves a la catalana" (large haricot beans), and "botifarra
amb mongetes" (Catalan sausage with beans). There is also a wide variety
of confectionery. For example "crema catalan", "mel i mato" (cottage
cheese with honey, "torrons" (a kind of nougat), "postre de
music" (pine kernels and raisins), etc. Important wines include those
from Peralada, Alella, Taragona, Priorat (red wine), El Penedes (red and white)
and the sparkling wines from El Penedés and Peralada.
As far as accommodation is concerned, there are hotels, hostels, and boarding
houses. The former are naturally more expensive than the latter. Boarding houses
abound in Old Barcelona whereas in La Rambla, near to the Cathedral and El
Ensanche, there are fine hotels. This is also the case of the upper and residential
areas of the city. Barcelona is more than prepared to cater for the millions
of visitors it welcomes each year.
There are bars to be found in every district of the city, but some areas specialise
in them more than other. For example: the district of La Ribera, the area around
Santa Maria del mar, La Rambla, the districts of Raval, Gracia and Sarria.
The more refined bars are found in the Rambla de Catalunya, the Passeig de
Gracia, the Diagonal, the Plaça de Francesc Macia and the residential
area in general.
Variety theatres enjoy a great tradition in the city and are located in El
Parallel, where there are many revues and night clubs. There are other in Tapies
street such as "Barcelona de Noche" (Barcelona at Night), the streets
of Arc del Teatro, Escudeller, Aribau, Muntaner, Sant Gervasi and in the Diagonal.
Those interested in dancing and discotheques will find dozens all over the
city.
For weekly information regarding bars, restaurants, cinemas, theatres and
concerts there is the magazine "Guia del Ocio" (Leisure Guide), and
for news items and information about the city there is the magazine "Barcelona" and
another called "Vivir en Barcelona" (Barcelona Life). Tourist Information
Centres provide leaflets on the different cultural and business aspects of
the city as well as the different public services.
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