Barcelona, Spain 4 - L'Àmfora

How could we leave Barcelona without tasting paella?! L'Àmfora, located near Plaza de España was one of popular restaurants that serve traditional paellas. We ordered a mix paella to share. We were asked to wait for twenty minutes. No problem! Cooking paella in a proper way should take time. Our server came back with our paella. He gave me a tiny bit of sample of rice. I didn't know that paella requires tasting before served like wine! I ate the bit of rice and approved it. Oh well, what could I do otherwise? I guess that was a sort of ritual to make us feel their paella special. Our server served the paella on two plates at the side of our table. He left some in the pan and set it on our table.

Ta-da! I liked the little baby squid. The paella had a deep rich smoky flavor, which was quite different from my homemade version that is light with a bright saffron flavor. I liked how the rice was done. It was quite al-dente. Overall I enjoyed their paella while it seemed that J wasn't satisfied with it enough.

Before we got the paella, we had a long day. We walked from Firebug, a restaurant that we had a lovely breakfast to Montjuïc, a hill sitting at the southwest of the city center via narrow passes in a messy local residence area within the old town.

Steps and steeps up to Montjuïc weren't too bad. The weather was beautiful! We visited Joan Miró Foundation. Luckily it was the free open day! Then, we walked to Teatre Grec, an open-air theatre in the Montjuïc hill that was built by the Catalan architect Ramon Reventós in the style of the ancient Greek theaters as part of the 1929 Expo. We also visited Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya that housed the outstanding collection of romanesque church paintings. Our day was packed with lots of walks and lots of arts!

To be continued...