Barcelona: El Xampanyet

El Xampanyet is another great Basque-tapas bar that I would strongly recommend. Great energy, cheap (relatively), and superb cava. Going in there at the peak hours (after 10pm) could be a bit daunting given the huge crowd inside as well as outside near the doorway. We were starving and just walked through the waiting line into the middle of the restaurant where we hung around the standing counter. Just our luck, a couple of people were leaving and a friendly looking man gestured for us to step right into their spots.

The friendly old man who took care of us three Asian girls.
He is probably the owner; his dad works there too and they look so much alike :)

He first served us pan con tomate, to accompany the tapas to come.

Marinated grilled sweet baby capsicum and bacalao with truffle sauce.

Anchovies in olive oil.


Different types of bivalves. The smaller ones were especially briney and sweet.

marinated white fish in vinegar that I don't particularly think was tasty. just sourish.Baby bell peppers stuffed with some creamy cheese. these were savoury and sweet and one of us loved it so much we had an extra orders. It wasn't just us who found this great; a stream of re-orders were observed.

Touted to be a special dessert baked by personally by the mother, this puff pastry with custard cream tasted quite ordinary but because it was baked by the mother and it was her specialty, I'll give it additional points for the memories.

I wanted some cheese and pointed to a manchego wheel behind the counter. Old man asked if we wanted "special cheese" and of course we said yes. He went to the side fridge to take out another smaller section of manchego cheese that was specked with coarse ground black pepper. Interesting to eat cheese like that; special indeed.

Address:
Calle de Montcada 22 , Barcelona