La Boqueria, Barcelona

In every city I went, I tried to go to the market, especially the open markets. Of all the markets I've been to on my Europe trip, La Boqueria stands out as the most interesting and eye-boggling. Although La Boqueria is covered, the sides are open so it still has that casual open market feel. Set in La Ramblas, this market has hundreds of stalls that specialize in fruits, veggies, seafood, dried fruits, dried veg, jamon, meat and many food stalls that are of restaurant standards. It is open Monday to Saturdays (Europe takes Sundays very seriously--everything stops and the shops and streets are deserted), 10 am to 7 pm.

Go to La Boqueria with an empty stomach because there are many things to eat there. Prices are not cheaper but this is after all on La Ramblas where all the tourists are. Rick Steves mentioned many stalls you can eat lunch at but since I lost his book (very sad about that) somewhere near the Spanish Arc Triomphe, I can't give you restaurant names and street addresses. Rick Steves' Best of Europe really is the bible to travelling in Europe. My copy of Lonely Planet was untouched because it just isn't as good as Rick's Europe. Rick knows Europe like a local and writes in a funny, light-hearted way and rates places of interest--3 triangles means 'must go', 2 means 'don't miss', 1 means 'go if you have the time', something along that line--and I've found all his tips and recommendations very useful, except for the tip on the Uffizi in Florence but I'll talk about that when I come to that.

My daughter and I absolutely love flat/donut peaches. Choose the ones that are unblemished, firm yet fragrant. We don't even peel the skin off.

I've said it before, I prefer Spanish cured ham to Italian.  Look at how fresh the ham is. Here we tried the serrano (left) and the 99 euro /RM400/US$125 per kg Jamon Iberico (right). Both were good, with Iberico stronger in flavor while the serrano was smoother. The jamon was so good, we were a little heady after eating it.

 Jamon Iberico is made from the black Iberian pig and the best jamon Iberico comes from  free-range pigs that feed on acorns in the last few months before slaughtering.

An egg stall. Black ostrich egg omelette anyone?

Porcini mushrooms, dried but very fresh! The dried porcini that I get in Australia is usually  broken, brown and slightly powdery, a sign of age.

If I remember right, these morrels were 300 euros/RM1200/US375 per kg.

Pesticide-free flowers for garnishing.

More edible flowers and some flower-shaped tomatoes.

Wild strawberries

This stall sold Asian fruits like rambutans, guavas, tamarind, dragon fruits, mangosteens, tamarillos, starfruits, lychees etc.

Apart from cut fruits, you can get pure fruit juices thick as puree in various combinations. Refreshingly delicious on a hot day.

Those rabbits were big.

Love them Europeans; like the Asians, they eat every part of the pig .

Oohhh, goose liver. So big I thought it was fat.

Are these barnacles?

1/2 meter-long rectangular crepes come with fruits or savory filling.


Baccala/bacalao or salted cod which the Spanish and Portuguese love. Baccala needs to be soaked for hours to remove the salt. I was disappointed with the baccala fritters because  they were totally bland  (so tasteless that we couldn't finish that small portion) while the baccala balls were slightly better but still not tasty.

A very delicious plate of mixed mushrooms for about 3 euros. That's my copy of Rick Steves' (whom I began to call Stick Reves; I have the tendency to do that. Is it some kind of speech condition?) Best Of Europe 2010.

A couple of guys next to us recommended the grilled razor clams with a plate of baguettes, 15 euros/RM60 (that works out to RM10 per clam!)/US$19.

Grilled and topped with olive oil and parsley, this clam was so savory sweet and fresh!

He was drawing scenes of the market.

Lots of chocolate stalls too.

La Boqueria, an awesome market. Must go. Vic Market in Melbourne needs to learn a lot from La Boqueria in terms of variety, volume, presentation, freshness of produce and ambience.