You are currently browsing the category archive for the ‘Spanish food’ category.
The Lemurs are on a pre-Christmas mini break in Barcelona with the Crocodiles, and naturally eating is our top priority. Two months ago we booked a table at Ferran Adrià’s new venture Tickets and there has been much excitement and anticipation. On arrival, Tickets is studiously funky and laid back. There is a giant bank of Chinese wealth cats bobbing their golden paws in mechanical benediction around a video of the Adrià documentary. Waitstaff wear Michael Jackson / circus ringmaster t-shirts and every now and again an ice-cream cart goes by ringing a bell. It is undeniably atmospheric and more welcoming than austere Michelin-star style, but it is also a teensy bit precious. Humorous phrases are printed on the windows, among them ‘this is not a tapas bar’. Are you right now in your head singing this to the tune of ‘This is not America’? If so, then congratulations, you are me.
Our waiter suggested that the best thing to do is to let the kitchen bring food of their choice and, since we wanted the full Tickets experience we agreed. The thing is this: because is it, pace David Bowie, in fact a tapas bar, you’re not getting a tasting menu of seven or nine courses served to each diner but a procession of tiny dishes to share. Thus, we went through a lot of dishes and there are thus a lot of pictures. But bear with me, there is a lot of pretty pretty food to look at…
We wanted to see the Rain Room at the Barbican. It’s a cool-sounding installation by Random International (which sounds like a pop group) that involves a room that rains around you but somehow doesn’t rain on you. Apparently you can walk around inside this vast rain sculpture and not get wet. I say apparently because we didn’t actually get to see it. By the time we got to the Barbican there was a queue like an execution and the nice staff cheerfully told us it would take about three and a half hours to get to the front. Yeah. Three and a half hours. I’m not committed enough to many things to wait that long and certainly not an art piece that, however neat sounding, would take less than three and a half minutes to experience. So we decided to come back on a Tuesday morning in January when the fuss has died down and instead went for lunch. Read the rest of this entry »
It’s the time of year when we all start panicking about buying holiday gifts – unless you’re my mother, in which case you finished your holiday shopping weeks ago and have already presented wrapped gifts to your incompetent daughter. There’s something about getting Christmas presents from your Jewish mother in early November that delivers that extra measure of guilt with the festive spirit. Also, I should say that really, this isn’t actually the time of year that I start panicking about present buying. That time is called mid-December. (This is why my mother thinks I’m incompetent. Surprise: she’s right!) However, as Thrifty Gal reminded me, people with blogs have to think about these things early, or early-ish. So I have roused myself from the state of complete denial with which I like to approach the festive season and investigated the delicious world of giftage for the food lover in your life. Read the rest of this entry »
the lemurs are hungry 