Font de Les Planes
Where? Font de Les Planes (Les Planes, Barcelona, Spain) Map
When? Sunday January 28, 2024
Who? Owen and Bea
Food Style? Catalan Barbeque
We’re up in the mountains past Tibidabo, close to the train line to Terrassa and Sabadell. We’ve spent the afternoon walking around Vallvidrera, overlooking Barcelona, and now - tengo mucha hambre. I’m very hungry. We’re going for a traditional Catalan meal - a calçotada! I’ve been looking forward to this all week. It’s the season for these Catalan green onions, and I’m super keen to experience this with my friends. There’s an open area with charcoal for people to barbeque their own calçots, but we’re sitting in the restaurant and are going to be served them. This place is insanely busy and we’re in for the second sitting at 3pm, a very Spanish time to eat lunch.
I’m very thankful to be here with people who can speak the local language. I can pick up a few words and I know vaguely what most things on the menu are, but I appreciate not having to think about this. Bea and Owen have ordered a lot of food for us but I’m so down. This is going to be mega. They bring out allioli - emulsified garlic oil - and the all important romesco to dip the calçots in. Around us, there’s a 53rd birthday and an 80th birthday, with the traditional “feliz cumpleaños” song playing through the restaurant’s speakers. The atmosphere is jovial and people are having a good time. 
They bring out bread, two tomatoes and a clove of garlic for the all-important pa amb tomaquet, which we have to assemble ourselves. There’s a very specific order to do this and we have to rely on Bea for the instructions. First, rub the garlic on the bread - it may not seem like a lot, but the flavour will come through stronger than you expect. Then, cut the tomato in half and mush it into the bread. Finish with olive oil and salt. It’s amazing how something with such simple ingredients is so delicious.
First Dish
Carxofes a la brasa: grilled artichokes
It’s got that wonderful smokey aroma to it. The exterior is tough and needs to be discarded before you get to the soft, juicy artichoke heart. This pairs excellently with the romesco.
Second Dish
Calçots amb romesco: Catalan green onions with romesco
Oh boy, there’s a lot. There’s an art to peeling the charred outer layers to leave the sweet inner calçot, which you dip into the romesco and carefully dangle over your mouth. It’s hot to touch but with the sauce it cools down. It’s so delicious. There’s something incredibly enjoyable about this moorish way of eating.
Third Dish
Graellada de carn: barbequed butifarra sausage, lamb, rabbit, steak and chicken
Okay this is too much food now. There’s a massive selection of different kinds of grilled meats, and they all have that wonderful smokiness but some are a bit overdone or overseasoned. This complements the vegetables perfectly, and the allioli goes super well with everything. I want a litre of that stuff to take back to Toronto.
Dessert
Mel i mato
We have leftovers, there’s just too much for us to eat. We ordered an escalivada as well but thankfully were able to cancel it. We have to finish it off with a bit of dessert, and I’ve decided to go with mel i mato, another classic Catalan dish. Made with unsalted and unsweetened cheese drizzled with honey, this simple but tasty dessert is a long standing tradition close to the heart of many Catalonians. Don’t call it ricotta though, they’ll yell at you. The version here needs more honey, there isn’t enough for the amount of mato that they’ve served.
The table is a mess, full of charcoal flakes and drips of oil. I recall a Chinese saying that if the table is clean at the end of a meal, you haven’t had fun. What a fantastic meal though, and what a great Sunday afternoon.
Posted by Jeremy at 12:16pm on Friday March 8, 2024 :: 0 comments :: 