Best Tickets in town

After a late Friday night/early Saturday morning in Barcelona town with our mate Dan, we all had a big fat sleep-in but met back up with Dan for some coffee and greasy breakfast at some non-descript cafe on La Rambla and people-watched for a while.  We then hopped on the Metro over to La Sagrada Familia, an amazing basilica designed by Antoni Gaudi, which is incomplete as he got hit by a tram halfway through. Dang. In brighter news, it was much more breath-taking than I had remembered when I visited here in 2005 - the sheer enormity and detail of the design and wall carvings is unbelievable. As you can see from the number of cranes they are still working on it they plan to eventually finish it how Gaudi had intended.

The amazing La Sagrada Familia

After stopping nearby for some lunch (tapas accompanied with cerveza and sangria - what else?) the sun had come back out so we hopped back on the metro to Barcelonetta to check out the beach, which Dan was desperate for having moved to London at the start of the year. None of us had brought our swimmers with us that day so the boys stopped in at a surf shop and picked up some boardies/togs. So we headed down to the very crowded but inviting beach, and I admired the view with a glass of cava while the boys had a swim.

Barcelona's beach

We were careful not to let time get away from us as we had a special dinner booked that evening at Tickets, a tapas bar headed by Ferran Adria who ran El Bulli and is possibly the greatest chef in the world. I had booked a table for 2 exactly 60 days before (that is when the online booking form opens, and it books out within about an hour, so if you haven't planned this a couple of months before, forget it).

Ryan and Dan - happy diners at Tickets

This place is amazingly good value considering the standard of food, and the place is set up like a theatre with a ringmaster type character as the door person. Surprisingly, this door person was very friendly and helpful so after Ryan and I got there slightly early, we thought it was worth a shot to ask if our friend could squeeze on to the table as well, and they agreed! Dan was the luckiest man in town that night.

Mini airbags stuffed with manchego cheese

So we ordered probably two thirds of the tapas on the menu which was a huge amount of food, but every dish was worth it! Some of the highlights were the dishes pictured here, as well as Ferran Adria's famous Olives (looks and tastes like an olive, but isn't - it just explodes in your mouth!), razor clams in escabeche sauce, saffron pearls and soy sauce chards, iberian ham, and rabbit taco in salmorejo sauce. Then for dessert we had catalan cream rolls, warm lava cake with raspberry sorbet, and one of the highlights, the Animated Forest.

Fried egg with truffled duck fat and potato cream - we immediately ordered another round

Avocado cannelloni with crab and romesco sauce 

The Animated Forest

This dessert was called "Jose Luis - 'Que vienen las suecas' " 

This was by far and away the best value meal of my life, but I think it may also be the best meal of my life non-stop (although Ryan is calling a draw with Momofoku). Un-be-liev-able.

So after this life-changing dinner, we went for a nightcap at a bar nearby that majored in gin (with about 20 different varieties). We then got a cap to the beach area to see where all the beautiful people hang out at night, and all the clubs had massive lines out the front so that was a no-go. And since most bars in Spain close at 3am (it's only the clubs which kick on into the wee hours) we were back home again at about 4am. Zzzzzzzzzz.