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Poble­nou Dis­trict in Feb­ru­ary

Despite the win­try weather I’ve fallen in love with Barcelona again. This morn­ing we woke up to vis­tas of snow-cov­ered hills, a rare event, as it’s only the sec­ond time in 9 years that it has snowed here, accord­ing to the locals. Yes­ter­day we wore down jack­ets and gloves while strolling the streets of the Poble­nou dis­trict where our hotel is located. It’s hard to imag­ine that last year we wore spring clothes and basked in the sun­shine.

We’re so far from the usual tourist main­stream des­ti­na­tions that our hotel’s loca­tion is lit­er­ally off the maps, out­side the areas depicted within the fold-out maps that grace most tourist guide­books. One advan­tage of stay­ing in a neigh­bor­hood away from tourist attrac­tions is that we can get impres­sions of daily life for peo­ple who live in Barcelona.

Treats for Foodies

No mat­ter the weather, the food here is inven­tive, crafted from sea­son­ally fresh ingre­di­ents, treats from the daily mar­ket. Last night we dined at a tiny neigh­bor­hood restau­rant called La Forquilla, a short walk from our hotel in the north­east Poble­nou dis­trict. Every dish was skill­fully pre­pared; a few were truly mem­o­rable (espe­cially for food­ies).

This is not an upscale restau­rant, and it’s well off the beaten track. We dined there on a Fri­day night, but only two tables were full — at a restau­rant that deserves peo­ple wait­ing in line to get in…

Oys­ters served in Cava foam with lime

Cata­lan bread pud­ding

I started with oys­ters served in a Cava foam lime-zested may­on­naise — one of the best seafood dishes I’ve ever had in my life, despite the fact that I’m not usu­ally enam­ored with oys­ters. My entrée was suck­ling pig, served with with sev­eral pear coulis vari­a­tions that graced a rec­tan­gle of slow-cooked pork. Pear + pork + a hint of Szechuan pep­per­corn. What a sym­phony of fla­vors!

The waiter per­suaded us to try the “win­ter dessert,” a typ­i­cal Cata­lan bread pud­ding. His descrip­tion did­n’t do it jus­tice. This pud­ding was light as air, suf­fused with cin­na­mon and other spices that I could enjoy but not name. Next to the pud­ding there was “a crum­ble of cin­na­mon” fla­vored pow­ered nuts and maybe a hint of cocoa, and a dab of yoghurt ice cream on the side. It may sound odd, but it was deli­cious.

My hus­band dined splen­didly on the prix fixe menu for 30 €, whereas I had to dine à la carte in order to get the oys­ter starter.

Tonight we’re head­ing to Osmo­sis, another din­ing des­ti­na­tion for food­ies. Today we’ll hide from the rain by tour­ing the Fon­da­tion Joan Miro, a museum located on Mon­tjuic, near the Olympic sta­di­ums on the other side of the city.

We’ll be bun­dled up in down jack­ets and hats. Mucho frio, as they say here.