El Glop

After a long visit at the Camp Nou (which was amazing for us Barcelona fans) and a relaxation break at our hotel, we went out looking for dinner. Since it was 10 pm, a peak dinner time in Barcelona, we encountered lots of crowds and long wait times, and went from place to place before we ended up at El Glop, a rustic Catalan taverna.

We settled in for a relaxing Catalan meal. To start, in addition to our usual bottle of water, we decided to get a pitcher of (red) sangria. Oddly enough, considering how long we were in Barcelona, this was our only pitcher of sangria.

The sangria was pretty good. It was sweet and refreshing, and the soaked fruit added a nice freshness to the drink.

We decided to focus as much as we could on Catalonian specialties when choosing dishes. The first dish to arrive was the botifarra catalana, a Catalonian pork sausage, with a half tomato and half roasted potato on the side. The sausage had a casing that provided a nice snap, and the spices gave it an amazing flavor. The tomato and potato were both lightly seasoned with some salt and herbs, but they weren't anything that special.

We also got the escalivada formatge (roasted vegetables with goat cheese). We weren't sure exactly what to expect from this dish, but it certainly wasn't what we got. When we read the description, we thought it would be something like cut up roasted vegetables with goat cheese crumbled on top. Instead it was a few large slices of roasted red pepper with a giant slab of melted goat cheese on top. There may have been other roasted vegetables inside, but it's been a year and we can't remember. The block of goat cheese was a little different from other cheese we've had before, a little bit firmer and filmy, so that was new. It was tasty, but it wasn't anything great or memorable. 

We were really trying to balance our meals by getting enough vegetables, so we also got the esparrecs de marge (grilled asparagus). The asparagus was very simply prepared. It was grilled with a light sprinkle of salt and came with a side of romesco sauce for dipping. It was a very fresh dish prepared in the same manner as the Catalan specialty calçots (which we hope to try someday).

One of the more interesting dishes from that dinner was the sipia calamarcets (cuttlefish and squid with black rice). It was a fun experience from the moment it arrived at the table, since neither of us had ever had cuttlefish that looked like this before (only small cuttlefish balls). Those giant heads of cuttlefish looked rather amusing stuffed onto the plate, like big balloons. 

The cuttlefish and squid were both extremely tender even after their simple grill preparation. As with La Cova Fumada, they came whole (with grilled heads and legs) and were prepared simply by grilling with olive oil, salt, pepper and maybe a little bit of parsley. The black rice was fascinating though. We had no idea what kind of flavors to expect, but what we got was definitely something we could have never predicted. It tasted almost like lasagna. We couldn't explain it, but the combination of the rice, shredded/baked cheese, and whatever red sauce they used made it taste like tomatoes and was very hearty. We kept remarking to ourselves that it tasted like pasta or lasagna, even though we knew it wasn't. It was a dish that was full of surprises, but it was also very solid.

Lastly, we got orada a la brasa, a grilled whole fish that came with another half tomato and a roasted potato cut in half. Orada is the Catalan name for what is better known as bream or dorade in the US. As with every other fish we'd ever had in the Mediterranean, it was grilled simply with olive oil, salt, and lemon. A put his fish de-boning skills to use and we enjoyed tearing into the tender white flesh. The fish was nice and flaky, and it definitely tasted fresh. Overall it was a good dish, but it was something that we could get back at home or elsewhere in the Mediterranean, so nothing really special. 

Our meal at El Glop was fine, but definitely not the best meal of our trip. It was like having a simple homecooked Catalan meal, and we liked that. If you're in the area, it's a fine place to go and you'll have a good meal, but it's probably not worth going out of your way to visit with all the other amazing food on offer in Barcelona.

El Glop (sometimes called by its full name, El Glop de La Rambla, as there is more than one El Glop in Barcelona) is located at Rambla de Catalunya, 65.