Iposa

iposa

November 23rd, 2011

I arrived in Barcelona on Wednesday to help Oli with his Homage to Cataluña shoot on Saturday. The weather was amazing – 20º C and almost December! I took off a layer of winter clothing and the Catalans were putting on their coats! It’s all a matter of acclimatisation.

We went out for tapas, early in the evening, to Oli’s local bar, Iposa, behind the Boqueria. We sat outside to eat, it was like an English summer evening! The street’s fairly dark, so I had to resort to flash for the pictures. Not my favourite lighting, but the food’s good and deserves a mention. The tapas are €4 each and large for tapas – if you order four, you get them for €14. How could we resist…

carpaccio de lacón

The Carpaccio de Lacón, con pimenton y cebolla tierna, is thinly sliced, braised ham carpaccio, sprinkled with hot pimentón and spring onions. It’s like eating warm, spicy pieces of bacon – very Moorish.

boquerones en vinagre

Boquerones en Vinagre, are a typical Spanish dish of fresh anchovies, cured in salt water and then vinegar for several hours. The vinegar turns the flesh of the anchovy white. The anchovies are served in olive oil with chopped garlic, and parsley.

cazuelita de mejillones

Cazuelita de Mejillones un poco picante, is mussels cooked in a large saucepan (casserole) with a slightly hot sauce and a sprinkling of parsley. You can see how good the mussels are (and all the food) from the pictures. I was impressed, later on, to see that the chef cleans and prepares each serving himself! There was no indiction of what the the picante came from, but I would assume it was chilli or pimentón, which are common methods of spicing things up.

patatitas al horno

Patatitas al Hormo con allioli de pimienta – delicious baby potatoes, cooked in the oven and served with a very generous helping of allioli de pimienta. I could almost live on allioli – a delicious Catalan sauce made with garlic and olive oil, here sprinkled with pimenton, to give it an extra little kick.

daytime iposa

Iposa is at: C/ Floristes de la Rambla 14, 08001 Barcelona

The food was great, the tapas were huge and I was beginning to feel at home again. We drank a couple of bottles of Rosado, rosé from the Penedès, the wine producing region in Cataluña. I drank a lot of Rosado all week, it’s generally very good and rarely gives me a hangover, unlike rosé from other countries.

The night was still young, so feeling restored, we moved on to another bar…