The Travel Bug: The magic of Barcelona flavours and scents

Day 2 (Mon, 10 June 2019)

We didn't have anything planned for this morning as we had anticipated some pretty bad jetlag. It's wonderful not to have to rush around when on holiday. We woke up at leisure, and decided to have a light breakfast at Chocolateria San Gines which is very close to our hotel. One of the quintessential Spanish breakfasts is hot chocolate and churros, and this cafe is probably the most well known. Well, certainly Madrid's oldest chocolateria, having been around since 1894. It's in every tourist guidebook so yes, we know it's probably as overhyped as Tian Tian Chicken Rice in Singapore, but what to do? Have to try it once lah.

There was already a queue at 9am (though it wasn't as long as when we left the restaurant). We got a table pretty quickly though.

We ordered one set of 6 churros and hot chocolate for €4.30, a cappuccino and a glass of orange juice. It was just a tasting portion since we were going to have early lunch.

Verdict? The churros is light and crisp, not the thick doughy you tiao we were expecting. The chocolate is pretty darn good too. It's dark chocolate that's thick enough to coat the churros, yet not so cloying that you can't slurp the rest down. The coffee was disappointing light and sour though, so I poured the remaining chocolate into it, which improved it markedly, haha.

After breakfast, we returned to the hotel to pack, because we were leaving for Barcelona that afternoon. Then it was lunch proper at a nearby tapas restaurant that Andre had found during his research (he was in charge of finding food spots for this holiday) - Casa Toni.

It's a small restaurant run by people who spoke only a smattering of English, so with some gesturing, pointing and hopeful smiles, we ordered what they were well known for:

Lamb sweetbreads

Pig's ears, patatas bravas

Iberian pork and grilled peppers

We were supposed to be able to order tapas portions, but with the language barrier, we ended up with racione (mid-sized) portions, which meant that we couldn't finish everything we ordered and had to cancel one dish. The sweetbreads (nothing to do with bread, it's pancreas) was AMAZING. It had the texture of liver but with a milder, smoky taste that was addictive. I ate, and ate, and couldn't stop eating. The pig's ears were...interesting. A little too chewy for me. Maybe it's because I'm not a big fan of pork, so the last dish didn't appeal to me, but the boys liked it.

After lunch, we took a cab to Atocha train station to catch our Renfe AVE fast train to Barcelona. By "we", I mean our family sans Lesley-Anne, since she had to stay in Madrid for classes. A tip: If you're a family of three or four, it's often more worthwhile to take a cab instead of the metro. I especially recommend downloading Cabify, which is like Grab. I was given a discount code of €3 for my first three trips, so our trip from Puerta del Sol to Atocha was the grand total of €2.15!

Another tip: the AVE fast trains are very popular, especially during summer when it's the holiday peak season, so you should book your tickets as early as possible. Renfe is the main rail company in Spain and they release the tickets rather haphazardly - sometimes 2 months before, sometimes a month. I was monitoring the site every day and the day the ticket went on sale (three weeks before), I bought them. A week later, the tickets were already 25% higher. You can book via the official Renfe site, but it's all in Spanish, so I booked from the Trainline site instead. The prices are similar and at least you can read what you're booking!

Atocha is Madrid's main station and it's HUGE, so give yourself plenty of time to find your way. You have to go through a baggage check but the process is general hassle-free.

The train left exactly on time and the ride was fast and smooth. I'm a big fan of trains. More so than planes, for sure! From Barcelona Sants, we used Cabify again to get to our hotel - Praktik Essens. How we booked this hotel is a funny story. My friend had recommended Praktik Rambla, and I wanted to book it, but I was too late to book the triple room - someone had beaten me to it...by one day. Other similar level hotels were either more expensive or less accessible and I was quite miffed when a couple of days later, a sister hotel suddenly popped up in my feed - Praktik Essens. It's right at Passeig de Gracia, a very central area, and is brand new. As of now, it's only into its third month. So even though it didn't hadn't even opened yet, I booked it in a hurry as I didn't want to miss the opportunity again.

Its location is easily missed. Along Passeig de Gracia, there's a narrow alleyway that leads to El Nacional, the high end collection of restaurants. Located modestly on the side is Praktik Essens.

Upon entering the lobby, you'll see a large collection of scents. That's the specialty of the hotel, and you even get to pick your toiletries based on your favourite scent - herbs, floral or the sea. We chose the sea, which is a fresh citrusy scent. They gave us two packs, each containing bottles of shampoo, conditioner, shower gel, body lotion and a bar of soap. So very pretty and elegant.

Whenever we enter a new hotel room, it's always with bated breath. Will it do justice to its pictures? Or would it be more accurately described as false advertising? Well, when we entered our room in Praktik Essens, Andre gasped and said, "This is the best hotel room we've ever had!"

Possibly an exaggeration but this self-declared "two star hotel" certainly went beyond all our expectations. It's impeccably furnished with a generous king bed and a twin. It's large, with even space for a small table and writing area. There's a separate WC room, a generous shower stall and two sinks. There's no kettle but it has a capsule coffee maker. No fridge though, but we don't care. We love it.

On the first floor foyer, there's a lounge with free coffee and tea, and an outdoor terrace. What a find! Missing out on Praktik Rambla turned out to be a blessing in disguise. I whole-heartedly recommend this hotel to everyone coming to Barcelona.

Nothing left to do for the rest of the day except go for our first dinner in Barcelona. That had to be at Ciudad Condal, which was highly recommended by my friend. Some diners online call this the "best tapas place in Barcelona". It's a 4-minute walk from our hotel and we thought we were early reaching there at 6.30pm but already there was a line. We only had to wait 15 minutes though and actually, the wait was good because it gave us time to study the menu, which was quite confusing. We were really at a loss as to what to order, and ended up peering over at the bar area trying to figure out which tapas in the display windows looked good (and then playing match the items on the menu!)

In the end, this was what we ordered:

Tomato bread, prawn and guacamole skewer, pear and gorgonzola, Iberian ham

Sirloin with foie sauce

Octopus

Cod with ham

Grilled squid

Apart from the tomato bread which the waiter recommended as a good pairing with the ham, everything else was an anyhow order by us. Either we really lucked out in our order or everything they serve there is good, because I'm not kidding when I say every single item we ordered was mind-blowing. (A couple at the next table leaned over and told us we "ordered very good items", then proceeded to order some of what we did, lol!) My friend had warned me about the curt service but we had a very friendly waiter who made us feel really welcome.

Words do no justice to the flavours. How can octopus taste so utterly delicious? Simple tomatoes on bread? It's just unfathomable. The pear and gorgonzola tapas didn't look like much but it was so magnificent that we ordered another one. Simply culinary magic. We'll be back. (By the way, the signs on the restaurant read Cuitat Comtal but the name cards inside the restaurant are printed Cuidad Comdal. Spanish mystery.)