Barcelona, Tapas: Cerveseria Catalana

After having the best seafood of my life for dinner the previous night, and then exhausting myself visiting every building Gaudi even breathed on, I was ready for the best tapas Barcelona had to offer. So the Czar and I set out for Cerveseria Catalana - which translates as Catalanian Brewery - and were met with an enormous crowd of people spilling out from the entrance, holding wine glasses and waiting for a seat at the bar. We very cleverly scouted out a couple about to leave, and dove for their seats as soon as they took their last sip of wine, settling ourselves in for a long dinner spent sampling all of the culinary curiosities set out before us.

A little bit of history: The word tapas derives from the Spanish tapar, to cover, and, as with many good things, owes its birth to alcohol. The tradition originates in the Spanish bars of old, where tapas started out as slices of bread or meat used to cover patrons' glasses between sips, to prevent fruit flies from swarming around the sweet wine. Eventually tasty morsels - olives, tomatoes, octopus tentacles - meandered their way onto the slices of bread, and tapas blossomed into a full-fledged cuisine.

There are a lot of different ways to enjoy tapas - sitting around a table with all the dishes on the table at once, paying by the toothpick at a bar - but in this particular instance, we happened to be seated at a bar, and indicated to the bartender what we'd like delivered to us. After having tried the self-selecting toothpick method on another occasion, I can say I prefer this one - it leads to a slower, more languorously enjoyed meal.

The first thing we tried was the Sputnik, to commemorate Mother Russia: a baguette with tuna, roasted red peppers, egg, and some kind of delightful sauce.

Then, a mad array of dishes appeared: to the left, battered calamari; above, four cheeses piled high and melted on toasted bread; and to the right, mediocre patatas bravas.

Easily the highlight of the evening was the finale - we weren't sure what the hell it was when we ordered it; all I knew was that it looked good and had toasted almonds on the outside, always a winner - which turned out to be goat's cheese, melted to perfection and coated with toasted almonds and a drizzle of jam. We ordered seconds.

The evening would have ended with literal fountains of light and joy had the Font Màgica - literally, the magical fountain - on the former Olympic grounds not been closed at an hour when it should have been open, probably because the people who turn on the switches were on strike for not being paid enough to turn on the switches. (Strikes happen a lot in Spain: I am told that sometimes flights are delayed for four hours, and then once you're on the plane, sometimes they are delayed for another hour that you spend flying around the Mediterranean waiting for enough workers to return to operate the towers, and then once you've landed sometimes it takes you three hours to get from the airport to the city because the train workers are also on strike. I love me some unions.)

Instead, the Czar and I met up with two of his friends - hailing from Germany and the Philippines, respectively, quite international, these Spanish students - in a tavern in Barrì Gotic and drowned our disappointment in a bottle (or two) of leche de pantera.

Edging our way past the cramped and crowded little bar, we sat down at a stained wooden table, amidst a cloud of cigarette smoke, and the Czar soon returned with an unmarked bottle of what looked like milk - and a shaker of cinnamon, to be dusted on top of the poured drinks. At the time, I had no idea what was in it, and the bartender wouldn't reveal the recipe, but later I learned that leche de pantera was devised by some clever Andalusian legionnaires by mixing condensed milk with any kind of high-octane alcohol. Never underestimate the genius of Spanish soldiers. That night we only had the original kind, but apparently it comes in green, blue, and pink as well. Not sure I want to know from what animal that milk comes from...

Doro paused to roll a cigarette before we disappeared into the sweltering night - the kind where even the cobblestones start sweating in sympathy - and this photograph makes me wish that we had places like this in the States. And that I could legally frequent them.