Nice View, Shame About The Food

This Olympic-sized swimming pool was actually used in the Olympics.

I'm a great fan of the Picornell sports centre on Montjüic - I go to the gym there a few times a week, and during the warmer months take advantage of the outside swimming pool and sun-loungers. It's conveniently close to my flat, and the walk there past the MNAC museum is very picturesque. The Picornell also has a restaurant with terrace with some great views - and pretty dreadful food which Mrs HD and I had the misfortune to try a few days ago.

Lovely, sunny terrace...

The menu of the Café Picornell seemed promising enough - tortellini with a pepper sauce, strawberry and raison salad, rustic soup or pan-fried veg to start with, followed by duck thigh in port sauce, salmon in mint sauce, squid rings or cod balls - although in retrospect a little ambitious for a sports centre restaurant. We gave it the benefit of the doubt.

Our initial impression was good. The staff were friendly and helpful, and we secured a table with a great view of the pool and the Colserolla hills beyond. Then the food arrived. The tortellini we'd ordered was obviously not home-made,  neither was it particularly nice. The sauce also appeared to be from a packet, and passable, although sprinkled with dried mixed herbs . The best you could say for the dish was that there was a lot of it. Mopping up the excess sauce was made slightly less pleasant by the staleness of some of the bread.   

...oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.

Next came the salmon in mint and cream sauce, which sunk to new depths, if you'll pardon the pun. The fish cutlet itself was tough, full of bones and not particularly tasty. The sauce had no discernable flavour at all, and the salad was distinctly lack-lustre. Throwing in the towel, we decided to forego a dessert - a choice of crême caramel, fruit salad, some kind of tart or a piece of fruit - in favour of a cortado. 

All in all it was €9 poorly spent, despite including a beer (or red wine, which we didn't try). I will still recommend the Café Picornell, however - albeit as a nice location to have a leisurely drink, and maybe a sandwich (if after this review you don't even trust them with this, you can always bring your own as there is a part of the terrace reserved for picnics.) 

Thai To Die For?

Thai yellow curry at Tivoli's Bistro, Poble Sec.

I've walked past Tivoli's Bistro many times in the last five years, and every time I glanced at the menu and wanted to walk in. Then I peered at the prices and walked on, maybe stopping at the Cervecería Jazz for one of the best burgers in Barcelona or La Tomaquera for a trad Catalan feast on the cheap. 

Maybe it was years spent living in North London where you could pick up a fantastic, eye-wateringly hot Thai curry and rice in a pub for less than a tenner, or simply a belief that Asian cuisine in Poble Sec just couldn't be THAT good to warrant the outlay. The menu itself was highly extensive, and featured non-Thai food. 

Now both the prices and the choice have been reduced, and the hours expanded so that Tivoli's Bistro now offers a menu del día for €10.95 ex IVA, but including a starter, main course, a dessert and drink. Seeing this, I made a beeline for the place at the earliest opportunity. 

Entering the inexplicably Italian-named eaterie, everything is on display, from the stripped, bare-brick walls to the windowed kitchen. The restaurant is divided into two areas, with the back enjoying plenty of natural light. Photos of Thailand hang from the walls and the place has the air of unhurried efficiency.

The menu del día undergoes regular changes, and today it featured tuna croquettes with chilli dipping sauce or filo pastry parcels stuffed with grilled vegetables with a tomato and goats cheese sauce as starters. Mains were a choice of phad thai, yellow chicken  curry or five-spice pork with eggs and fried tofu. Cheese mousse with fig and raspberry coulis or rambutan and pineapple were offered as dessert.

Feeling highly unadventurous we both went for the tuna croquettes followed by the yellow curry. The first was delicious - crunchy on the outside, moist and flavoursome inside. The sauce was a well-chosen bottled sweet chili with a decent kick to it. 

In short, our expectations of the main course were raised, only to be somewhat dashed when the yellow curry arrived. Whilst featuring high quality ingredients, this was clearly a dish designed with the cautious Catalan palate in mind, and more of a stew than a curry. Perfectly edible, yes - but it certainly left me wishing I'd tried one of the other mains instead. Disappointed, we hoped dessert would be a return to form.

I chose the rambutan and pineapple - both tinned and perfectly acceptable as part of a menu del día. Mrs HD went for the cheese mousse and fruit coulis - which was homemade, delicious and essentially a deconstructed cheesecake, minus the base.

In conclusion, we decided that the meal was well worth the price, and would definitely be returning for a menu - or even a pricier à la carte treat in the evening. As I mentioned earlier, this has been drastically cut down, and the prices appear lower than before.  Starters are around €6.50, and main courses €13.50 to €16.50. There's also a tasting menu for €25 per person plus IVA which includes a glass of wine, water or a beer. And the wine? The wine is fine.

Tivoli's Bistro

c/ Magalhäes 35

Poble Sec

08004 Barcelona

Tel: 93 44 14 01 7

Smoke-free restaurant

"I want it Indian hot, not Spanish hot!"

The above is a constant refrain if you're a guiri in search of a decent hot curry in Barcelona. Despite having pillaged the New World and come back with - among other things -  chillies (and, indeed helping to introduce them to Asia) the Spanish are roundly suspicious of anything spicy. 

So wary are they that their language clearly distinguishes between the heat of excited atoms - calor (n) , caliente (adj) and that of chillies - picante (adj). When ordering a curry, for example at Moti Mahal - my favourite Barcelonese Indian and dining place of the stars - you will be asked if you want the food picante, medio or suave, for each dish, irrespective of whether that dish would normally be hot or mild. One must also remember that picante is very different for a Spaniard, and so I often explain that I'm British and I want my Chili Chicken superpicante.

La Fontaine

Juan pours wine whilst Stuart's hummus & poppadums take centre stage.

A great place for a drink or a meal, "La Fontaine" on the 

corner of c. de la Franca Xica 20 and c. Concordia 45, has a 

distinctive red decor (partially painted by my own fair 

hands) adorned with some striking modern art - all for 

sale, of course. And when Stuart or right-hand-man Juan 

put on the play list we sorted out for their i-Pod, the 

music's pretty good, too.

The food options are highly eclectic, and kick off with 

hummus, filo pastry parcels and various salads, plus some 

sensational soups, then progress to dishes as varied as 

tagines, curries and Chinese noodles. Deserts are good, 

but crowned by an exemplary interpretation of cheesecake.

Average spend is about €15 - 25 per head, and the wine 

selection is also great.

If you just turn up for a drink (and we generally do) there's 

a good friendly atmosphere, presided over by Stuart and 

Juan - the Hinge & Bracket of Poble Sec. Feel free to join 

in with the ceaseless comic bickering if you think you can 

keep up. La Fontaine is open every day from 1.30ish till

late and they take bookings on 934 433 523.

Below are a few tasty morsels from the Fontaine's tiny 

kitchen, plus an interview with the man himself.

Figs with creme 

fraîche.

Goats cheese in filo 

pastry with salad.

People You Need To Know #1 - Stuart McKenna

As promised long ago, here are the words of wisdom from 

our good friend Stu. It's not so much an interview as a 

musing on life in Poble Sec. Enjoy.

Nice Rice

Paella marisco, according to Elche. Note the high seafood-to-rice ratio, & the fantastic colour.

After a rather depressing last post, here's another restaurant review.

This was to be the third time in a week that we were to eat paella, so it had to be good, and as soon as we walked through the door to be greeted by a smart, friendly besuited waiter and had a quick look around, Mrs HD, her mum and I had high hopes that it would be.

Elche was established in 1959 on this site, and now has another branch, which you can explore at your leisure if you follow the link to their website, below. The Poble Sec HQ is certainly a cut above most restaurants we'd dined at in the barri, with attentive service to match, extending to an English-speaking wine waiter. We arrived at about 1.30 on Sunday afternoon, and obtained one of the last available tables, so it's probably best not to chance it as we did, and book. 

The interior is welcoming and even a little snug - ideal for the colder months, which are fast approaching. The menu specialises in rice dishes of various content and consistencies, and we were very tempted by the paella with bacalao and ceps (around €13), as well as fideu (€12-ish) which substitutes rice for inch-long pasta noodles.

For starters we enjoyed a selection of escalivada - roasted vegetables - with tiny broad beans, chipirones - baby squid, fried; and fried vegetables, as shown. All three dishes were excellent, flavourful examples of local classics. 

Most starters are available as a full-size dish, half-size or as a tapa, depending on the size of your appetite, with prices to match. Those pictured are half-sized portions - media raciones.

In the end, we decided to plump for the seafood paella as a main course - and were not disappointed. There was a good mixture of shellfish, including Dublin Bay prawns (cigallas), squid (sepia) cockles (berberchos) prawns (gambas) and muscles (mejiones) - and plenty of it, as you can see from the main picture in this post. 

The colour was a good rich saffron, and the flavour had a lot of depth. Although not completely dry, the dish was far from sloppy, with a thick, rich, liquor-like stock. In short it was one of the best paellas - of many - I'd tasted for a long time. There was a good selection of wines, ranging from a €9 house white to €20-plus vintages. We went for a decently priced, safe supermarket favourite, Viña Sol.

In summary, I'd say this is a great place to bring parents on a Sunday - a cut above most restaurants in the area, friendly, great food and service and reasonably priced.

Elche Restaurant 

c. Vila Vilà 71

Tel 934 413 089

3 Covers - €3.90

Viña Sol Torres - €12.30

Litre water - €2.80

Escalivada w. beans - €4.50

Fried baby squid - €7.00

Fried artichokes, aubergines, courgettes - €6.00

3 Paella marisco - €48.30

Total, incl. IVA - €84.80

How to pronounce paella

It's a problem that bedevils all non-Spanish speakers. The double 'l' sounds quite similar to an English 'y', making the the word a little like 'pie-YE-yah'. For a much more amusing explanation - plus an interesting recipe to boot, take a look at the video. Bon profit!

How NOT to pronounce "paella", according to Richard E. Grant and Arabella Weir.