Sangria, Tapas and Paella anyone?

Finding vegetarian food was a bit of a problem in Barcelona, we managed but our choices were limited. Our first night, we tried an Organic Vegetarian restaurant mentioned in the Lonely Planet guidebook run by a Pakistani off of Ramblas. The salad bar was decent but the selection of main entrees was quite limited and their sangria was mediocre, I would pass on this place. During our stroll on les Ramblas on that very rainy day,  we found an excellent lunch place that served the most delicious falafel sandwiches.  We ate at Maaz twice and to our horror discovered that that the "to die for" cauliflower topping was deep fried for 10+ minutes which explained why it  was so damn good. Nevertheless, great value for money and possibly the best falafel you would have ever had.

The three things I really wanted to sample in Barcelona were Sangria, tapas and paealla. Sangria, we managed to have it pretty much every day and I could drink Sangria every day if someone made it for me. Tapas and paella were more of a problem. A must-see place on les Ramblas is the Boqueria. It is a colourful Farmer's market with food from all over the world and small restaurants with benches around the kitchen serving wine and gourmet food. In Europe, even fast food places have class. There, we found an eatery from the  Organic restaurant chain we tried our first night. Their menu seemed interesting with curry tapas, vegetarian pizzas, sandwiches  and vegetarian paella. Again, the food was mediocre but at least we had our paella.

We had our best meal on our last night.  We chose a restaurant from the guidebook but to our disappointment, they only had 1 vegetarian option. In the Barri Gotic area, there are many outdoor cafe restaurants and although it was too cold to eat outside, there are still many options available. We settled on a restaurant on Princesa road, I forgot the name but it was a popular place among tourists so it's probably listed in some guidebook. We had mojitos, sangria, some decent tapas and vegetarian lasagne. For dessert, we had catalan cream which is the specialty in Barcelona. The drinks and food were excellent, the ambiance lively and festive, it was the perfect place to end our trip in Barcelona.

Boqueria in Les Ramblas. Fresh fruit juices, sold throughout the market

Have you seen lettuce so big?

The "fast food" joints at the boqueria

Lots and lots of fruit - oranges were in season. Probably most of the other fruit was imported

Candy - We picked up a few pieces for the kids

Yes Prasad looked scared but we didn't have a better picture. Taken at the  restaurant in Barri Gotic our last evening.