Dare to try sushi!
Here’s a poster at a food stand at the airport in Barcelona.
This says volumes about the Spanish palette. It’s at the airport – in departures, where the truly adventurous might be found. The kind of person that travels to another country and might even sample foreign food. The kind of person who might dare to try sushi!
The Spanish text encourages you to “discover” sushi, implying that you’ve never had it before.
Years ago Ana and I would occasionally have lunch at a Chinese restaurant just off Plaza St Jaume. They had a proud little sign on the door that said they were the first Chinese restaurant in Barcelona. Opened in 1971!
If you got the impression from this that the Spanish palette and their cuisine is not the most open in the world, you’d be right. I suspect there must be decent correlation between how long your culture has been around and how deeply-seated your food preferences run. Yes, that’s a very vague statement.
Anyway, I like Spanish food, I’m not knocking it. But I do find this poster very amusing and indicative.
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March 31st, 2008 at 12:47 pm
If you like Japanese food, the two best restaurants are, IMHO:
– Sushi ya. It’s in Carrer Quintana 4, close to Carrer Ferran.
– Meshi soba. Carrer Aribau 14. Quite cheap and lets you choose between 15 dishes from its menu. The only drawback is that smoking is allowed.
I think the reason we didn’t have a wide an open cuisine until recently is that Spain didn’t receive too many immigrants during Franco’s era. Now, we’re receiving much more immigrants, and I guess that’s why you can find so many Pakistani, Lebanese, Japanese, etc. restaurants. For me, a food lover, this is great :-)
March 31st, 2008 at 1:47 pm
If you like Japanese food, the two best restaurants are, IMHO:
– Sushi ya. It’s in Carrer Quintana 4, close to Carrer Ferran.
– Meshi soba. Carrer Aribau 14. Quite cheap and lets you choose between 15 dishes from its menu. The only drawback is that smoking is allowed.
I think the reason we didn’t have a wide an open cuisine until recently is that Spain didn’t receive too many immigrants during Franco’s era. Now, we’re receiving much more immigrants, and I guess that’s why you can find so many Pakistani, Lebanese, Japanese, etc. restaurants. For me, a food lover, this is great :-)
March 31st, 2008 at 9:25 pm
i remember some years ago becoming a little fed up with pasta and pizza every day when in naples. one day i found a chinese and was dismayed to find they offered no rice dishes, just noodles.
March 31st, 2008 at 10:25 pm
i remember some years ago becoming a little fed up with pasta and pizza every day when in naples. one day i found a chinese and was dismayed to find they offered no rice dishes, just noodles.