Paco Meralgo

One place that we starred on our scribbled list of Barcelona restaurant names was Paco Meralgo.  People had great things to say about Paco Meralgo, it was recommended often, and perhaps most importantly, it was one of the few places on our list open on Sundays for dinner.

Paco Meralgo has menus in English, Spanish and Catalan - they must know they are recommended to food lovers around the world!

Paco Meralgo (from the Spanish pa comer algo / para comer algo, meaning "to eat something") is a popular place for tapas and wine, especially the Catalunyan specialty of cava (more on that later).  When we got there, the place was packed.  Clearly everyone else knew that was the place to be for Sunday dinner.  After a bit of a wait, we got great seats at the bar, where we could see all of the food coming out and everyone working hard in the kitchen.  I sat right in front of a bowl of gambas rojas (giant bright red shelled shrimp) on ice, and we're still not sure how we made it through the entire dinner without actually ordering gambas.  It was a great seat.

The gambas looked so good but somehow we didn't order them...

We decided to start off our meal with cava.  Cava is a Spanish sparkling wine which is predominantly made in Catalunya (it even has protected origin status).  A found it dry and refreshing, while I thought it was not as bubbly as the champagne I've had before.  Since it was more subdued I thought it was better.  It had a nice, sweet flavor.  Paco Meralgo serves Raimat cava and it was quite good.

Starting the meal with our Raimat cava

We ordered a bunch of dishes to start with and then added to our order as the night went on, mostly in my out-of-practice Spanish (castellano).  The plates came out quickly but were still pretty well paced so that the bar wasn't covered in plates before we finished the ones we had.  Here's what we got:

Pan con tomate (bread with tomato).  This was the best pan con tomate we had in Barcelona by that time, and it turned out to be our favorite pan con tomate of the entire trip.  The bread was toasted and crisp. It tasted strongly of tomato and olive oil.  It soaked through the entire bread without making it soggy.  It was perfect pan con tomate and we still find ourselves craving it to this day.

Espárragos silvestres salteados con ajos tiernos (wild asparagus sauteed with garlic).  This was really good and exactly the type of vegetable dish we had been looking for our entire trip.  The asparagus here weren't those wide stalks that we sometimes get here, but the skinny type of asparagus.  Each piece was soft but not soggy, perfectly cooked, and so garlicky and tasty.

Buñuelos de bacalao (cod fritters).  These cod fritters aren't much to look at from the outside, but you can tell that they're deep fried!  We saw lots of these leaving the kitchen.

These cod fritters did not have much filler.  It was like deep fried fish paste with some herbs and spices added.  You could actually taste the fish instead of just filler and breading.  We were really happy with these.

Flor de calabacin y mozzarella (squash flower with mozzarella).  We ordered this for a few different reasons - we were looking for more vegetables, it sounded really good (veggies stuffed with cheese? of course we would do that), and it was different from tapas we've had before.  We probably would have preferred squash stuffed with cheese that was not fried, but decided to try it.

We liked the squash but we didn't really need the cheese in our hunt for good vegetables.  The squash would have been good by itself.  The cheese was very melted, a little liquidy.  This wasn't a bad dish, but it wasn't our favorite.  In the battle between the 2 fried things we had eaten so far, the cod fritters were definitely winning.

Ensalada de ventresca, tomate y cebolla (salad of tuna belly, tomato and onion).  When we ordered this, we were expecting a salad of greens, topped with tomato, onion and slices of tuna. Instead, it was a plate with three columns of food - tuna, onions and tomatoes.  The tuna was cooked like tuna you would get in a can, but it was much better quality and much fresher.  There was no fishiness at all but just the pure taste of tuna.  The dressing was light, mostly olive oil and mustard seed. This was a really tasty dish with nice clean flavors.  Healthy too!

Boquerones rebozados (fried anchovies).  A was really looking forward to trying boquerones in Barcelona (as he is a big fan) and this dish met his expectations.  The taste of the fish was evident but just like the ventresca, it was not fishy.  A little salty, but adding the lemon tempered the salt.  You could barely even tell that the anchovies had bones.  

Carpaccio de atún (tuna carpaccio).  This was what we expected - tissue thin slices of tuna in olive oil, soy sauce, pepper and tiny scallions.  It was light and clean and the fish was of excellent quality.  This was one of the few dishes we got at Paco Meralgo that we could probably easily get here at home but it was still worth a try and very well done.

Croqueta de pescado y marisco (fish and seafood croquette), croqueta de pollo y jamón (chicken and ham croquette).  The croquettes were interesting.  I couldn't tell them apart.  At one point, I thought I was eating the fish croquette but A said it was the chicken one (not from the consistency but from the presence of ham).  Like FEBO in Amsterdam, these were fried tasty mush, which doesn't sound good as a description, but which we definitely like.

Fried mush

They even look the same when you cut them in half - only the coloring is a slightly different shade.  We both found them tasty but the flavors weren't that strong that they were easy to distinguish.

Pulpo de roca con cebolla confitada (octopus with caramelized onions).  We had expected to get tender pieces of octopus with onions on top, but what arrived was even better.  This one of the dishes we added toward the end of the meal and we were very happy with our choice.  The dish had small, incredibly tender pieces of octopus, mixed with caramelized onions in a tomato-based sauce.  It was kind of like a stew.  It came with 3 pieces of toasted bread, which were fine but we didn't need them.

Navajas a la plancha (grilled razor clams).  Clean, simply grilled and delicious.  I had not been a fan of razor clams before going to Spain because I had previously eaten some that were so chewy and tough that they were hard to swallow.  In contrast, these were so soft.  They were a little gritty in some parts but not too much.  Clams, olive oil, a little bit of salt, and a little lemon.  So simple but so good.

For dessert, we decided to get crema catalana, a signature Catalan custard.  This was like a less sweet version of creme brulee and we enjoyed it.  The burnt sugar in some parts was a little too burnt and kind of bitter, but paired with the custard, it balanced out and was very good.  The cookie it was served with was crisp and like multiple wafers stacked on top of each other.

A also closed out the meal with an espresso.  A is not a huge espresso drinker, preferring lighter roasts. But the darker roast and the bitterness of the espresso paired well with the crema catalana, so he was happy.

We loved our meal at Paco Meralgo, so much that we would visit again a week later (the only restaurant we visited more than once on our trip).  The service was excellent, they were incredibly nice and put up with my out-of-shape Spanish, the food was amazing, and they're open on Sundays!  This is one of the places we would highly recommend to a Barcelona visitor, especially if you don't speak Spanish (unlike our next review).  Dreaming about their pan con tomate... and that octopus... and the asparagus...