Gosh, Gael’s appetite grows bigger and bigger. This is Gael’s only starter!  He has pasta dish coming right up next.

Here’s my dish! Fresh Tagliorini ( more of linguini on this dish, Tagliorini should be bit thinner) with sweet scampi, musseles, vongole with tomato sauce with chopped Scampi meat. I think adding chopped scampi meat was super successful in this. It added ton of more flavor and great texture. Fresh chopped parcley, garlic… Yum Yum YuuuummmmMMM!

Emi’s. 2 grilled scampis and 2 grilled shrimps. Simple and delicious! Mom and Dad’s got grilled squid too.

Patiently waiting for Emi and Gael to be back…. See you next year Livorno!

Paella dinner with Emi after a long busy day and amazing night of Flamenco at Teatre Poliorama… A relaxing night stroll at Barceloneta area, a charming triangle shaped marina area where there is a port of Barcelona and one of the best Urban beaches of the world.

The Paella house L’arros( rice) carries maybe 100 kinds of Paella with easy modern ambiance and friendly service that comes with great price. I recommend it but sit outside. ( much nicer). The best thing about this place is they make any kind of  Paella for single portion. Nice!

Nite Nite…

The main grand entrance of Mercat de San Josep de la Boquesria or simply preferred to as La Boqueria, A large public market in the Ciutat Vella district of Barcelona. This market is one of the city’s most foremost tourist landmarks with an entrance from La Rambla , not far from the Liceu , Barceloa’s opera house. The market is absolutely diverse and rich in their selection of food and goods from fresh fruits, spices and impressive array of fresh fish and sea food and amazing low key open kitchen banquets full of made to order tapas and sea food eateries!! Come check out now the one of our world’s favorite market, La Boqueria with us!!!

www.boqueria.info/Eng/index.php

OK, That’s what is called “well stocked and well selectioned”. Wow, see you know what we are missing in NY?

The market is absolutely blessed by fresh produces and anything that you can imagine.  It’s overwhelming feeling stepping in to the market.

Fresh fruit juice to go. 3 euro! And below whole or half cut Pitahayas!!

The cured meat, fresh and exotic fruits an now what..? The MARISCOS! We are in Barcelona Baby!

Everything is alive and moving in this market. The crabs, lobsters, shrimps… It’s amazing. I don’t recall seeing anything frozen here. Maybe the salt cured but not the frozen.  Love it!!! I am going to have to share more pictures of fresh fish and sea food from the market, because it is really really impressive!

The sign says live Navana( razor clam) without sand!

Razor clams are really popular here. They look bit, hmmmm, what’s the word, bit slimy and bit disturbing actually. But hey wait until you taste them grilled with garlic, parsley, delicious local olive oil and squeeze of lemon… Ahhh then wash them down with chilled glass of Cava! It’s fantastico!

This…? Actually I need show this to someone is really expert at Sea creatures. I mean what would this taste like..?  How would you cook them?  They look like roots of the sea…

After the Tokyo’s Ginza Fish market, La Boqueria would be the next best one that I saw most various parts of Tuna being served. This is the ” Ventresca” of the tuna: The tuna belly, the fattest part and the most flavorful part of the fish. Even in Italy , most time you will see these in the cooked and jarred at higher price than regular canned Tuna. Believe me, US has the worst quality of canned tuna you can find. They are crumbs of Tuna after maybe other nations had packed the main parts. It’s impressive to see the fresh Ventresca stakes like this at the market. You can buy glass jarred cooked Ventresca at places like Balducci, Whole food at around $11.00-15.00 at a small portion.

Now getting out from the sea food section and moving on to the rest of the market…!

Now here we are finding a quite bit of Eateries with open banquets and kitchens. Beer, wine and Cava and all the Sea food, vegetables and even the desert! ahhh  2 seats please!!! I stole a pic of one of customer’s plate. It looks so yummy…!!!

Each places runs it its own way. This little place likes to display their uncooked fresh ingredients in the glass cases for the customers to glance at. The menu is on the black board and one single grill underneath dose all the job.

OK, We are staying here for lunch!  And you see this guy with serving the beer? He’s the man you need to talk to for the seats. He manages the seating, beverages and bread and the staffs. Or I guess he could be the owner..?

A glass of Cava first standing while waiting for our seats and switch to a glass of white.  Here we start our 3 hour long lunch together. Happy… Happy….!

We order a plate of mixed grill, mixed sauteed mushrooms, grilled sardine, octopus with cayenne pepper and go through like 10 glasses of wine… Chat and laugh and get bit silly with nice buzz…!

This quick sauteed mixed mushrooms  with green scallion is a dish from the heaven. Soooooooo Goooooood!

Yum Yum Yum,   It was a wonderful wonderful lunch!! Here check out  the best lunch spot in the entire Barcelona,

KioskoUniversal.com

Checking out a few more places right around the market. This is the chicest salumeria We ever had visited. Every piece of cured meat is all cut by hand. It almost reminded me of Caviar shop like vibe. The shop is right near to Kiosko Universal.

Paella!!!!!!  Still waiting to find the perfect place to have the perfect paella. This looks stupid delicious… Arrrr!

A you can see the market is the place to be, the place to know and understand the culture and richness of the people in their everyday humble life they live.

La Boqueria, You stole our hearts!!!

]]> http://www.lacasapark.com/la/2010/08/mercat-la-boqueria-st-josep-market-barcelona/feed/ 0 http://www.lacasapark.com/la/2010/08/the-metropolis-by-the-sea-barcelona/ http://www.lacasapark.com/la/2010/08/the-metropolis-by-the-sea-barcelona/#comments Sat, 14 Aug 2010 11:43:06 +0000 jaehee http://www.lacasapark.com/la/?p=4735 EasyJet to Barcelona descending. I already like the view. The ocean and the vibrant night lights. There’s no “too late” in this city…!! Emi, you ALWAYS have the best idea!!!

Aaaarrrriving at Barcelona!!!  9:45 pm. My first time ever to this Europe’s largest metropolis on the Mediterranean coast where is a home for impressive 5 million people! In fact I expect good fresh fish and olives, beautiful people, a city full of life and easy breezy sea breeze flirting my long flowing hair!  Yes we are in Barcelona!!!!!

Not the most romantic picture of the city but I think one of the smartest picture of the city. The standing poll handle on a metro. I mean Why NYC couldn’t think of this simple genius metro handles. Two heads are better than the one head and the three handles are better than the one handle during the rush hours. Right? By the way going to the hotel by Metro. Always a good experience to get on the local subway despite that actual our ride to hotel was quite long…!

After quick check in, we are heading out to have some late dinner. Preferably some good seafood! Which means some fresh oysters and CAVA (the Spanish sparkling wine which is pretty much their Champagne).  Ahhh the perfect warm breeze is so Sexy!  The weather in Barcelona is just perfect for the night stroll and we can’t waste one second by just sitting in the hotel room because it’s only the midnight!

Hotel concierge considers the Olympico area because now it’s almost 1:00am and it would be the best area to catch the late dinner. The kitchen would be still open till now or even for one more hour. Olympico is bit touristy with many little touristy discotheques ( it’s located at south end side of the city). The whole vibe reminds you the South street sea port in NY. Actually this would not be the my preferable area to hang out but sure you can have the last minute dinners al fresco and actually the place we had our plate of sea food was very very good.

A bottle of Cava and a small Grilled mix. A perfect size to share.  I have never eaten razor clams. I mean you know Seafood in new york in the market is pretty much boring and cliche’. Sole, Grey sole, Salmon white fish, Blue fish, shrimp and what else… Anyway, Razor clams in Italy is banned to be caught since they are disappearing for the moment.  I feel bit hesitant at first but I try. I mean where else would I have fresh Razor clams? A first bite… Wow actually the clam tastes super sweet and juicy. It’s Deeeeelicious!!

It’s quite late now and heading back to hotel to conqure the city starting from ealry morning.

Barcelona, here we come, See you tomorrow!!!!!

]]> http://www.lacasapark.com/la/2010/08/the-metropolis-by-the-sea-barcelona/feed/ 0 http://www.lacasapark.com/la/2010/07/lunching-sea-urchin-rice-pot-asakusa-tokyo/ http://www.lacasapark.com/la/2010/07/lunching-sea-urchin-rice-pot-asakusa-tokyo/#comments Mon, 26 Jul 2010 21:28:39 +0000 jaehee http://www.lacasapark.com/la/?p=4423 After the temple, I decided to have early lunch here in Asakusa rather than in the heart of Tokyo. I figured it would be much more interesting to have lunch here in Asakusa. There are many little streets with low rise house like places in the area. Shave ice places, Soba houses, knife stores, textile houses, kimono shops, tea houses, paper shops and much more!  There are many interesting traditional looking places here in Asakusa. I started to stroll a bit to find a perfect spot for my little lunch here!

OK, At the end I decided to go to this lovely place below for “Kamamesh: An individual rice pot with various ingredients that you can choose from their offer.  I eyed on this place earlier. My ‘ Travel Instinct’ was smelling it again. ” You know what? This place will be great!”

A jack pot for me!! A beautiful lady and two gentlemen gracefully dressed in lovely hue of Grey Kimono lively greet me. ” Irrat -shiamase!! ( Welcome!) Yes, I’m in a right place and I already know the lunch will be fab!

Here the menu describing what I am having, Kamameshi!!  I just started trying Sea Urchin. In Japan and Korea both Sea urchin is very popular and it is considered as delicacy. I never liked how it looked but I tried one day on a bed of fresh cucumber with shiso leaf and I really loved it. The texture was actually nice. Not too mush or slimy as I always imagined. It has the flavor of fresh ocean and natural sweetness. Now I really like it! So I order the Sea Urchin pot!

Everything is made to order, So I wait for good 20 minutes: 20 minutes for rice gets cooked to a perfection in this small individual pot with nice and chunk wooden top. This is truly “Slow Food”. Pre-cooked Pasta? Forget about it!

As I open the wooden top, I smell the aroma of sweet Sea Urchin and comforting rice all mixed happily and that subtle smell of sake! Ahhhhhh, This is going to be ammmaaaazing!

Oh My God! I only had a little bite and it is absolutely delicious! The rice is perfectly seasoned in broth. It’s not too hard or over cooked. I just know the Sea Urchin is the top of the quality. And simple hearty miso soup to go with. Deliciousness wraps around my head and body and I feel wooed by it…!

Hahahaha, look at my busy hands!! hihi..  By the way, in between while you are eating, you want to cover the pot with the wooden top. 

Good to the last piece. Yum Yum Yum!!!  The meal was about $20.00 including miso soup and japanese pickles. So worth it! There are many amazing restaurants in Asakusa that have more of traditional attitude. You will really love it!

Walking back to main road to catch a taxi to head out to Ebisu to stop by at store Capital, and I keep finding more amazing sights here. Below is a family run traditional rice cracker place. They ‘Hand’ grill each rice patty on the charcoal grills using chop sticks. I see Grandpa, Grandma, Son and everyone here. It almost looked like a movie set. This shop is more than 100 years old.

The name of the shop. Hmmm I can’t really read this one…

Bye Bye Asakusa, Thank you for lovely morning and the lunch! I’ll be back!!!

Here we have a core table of Korean Sulong Tang!  Kimch, young green peppers and rustic miso paste to be dipped, finely chopped fresh scallion. Check out the soup! How milky that is.  Sulong Tang is never served already seasoned. The broth is just water and cow bones that are boiled forever. You will need to season by using good old simple rock salt. Here this restaurant uses Bamboo Baked Sea salt which comes in bit of grey shade. What’s in the soup? Bits and pieces of meat, slices of Ginseng, mushroom. Clean and rich flavor. Actually this soup is ideal for cold winter days, it will fill you up and heal your soul…!

Here a home style cooking Korean Restaurant, “Modern Bapsang”.  You will find many places that are literally residential property transformed into a lovely small businesses in Seoul And I like it for it’s approachable warm attitude. I love the pink wall against the green along the rustic wood paneled passage way. You pass the small alley then you will hit the open yard staging the open door restaurant filled with people dining. It’s very Lovely!

One After another plenty of open door restaurants are lined up along the Garosu here in Garosu Gil. It was a Monday evening but it seemed like it did not matter to anyone here. Hustle an bustle, the night is just not long enough!

 A open kitchen Japanese Restaurant.

A sake house.

Sorry I didn’t pay attention to the name of this place, but You can’t miss it!  This hugely open rustic modern coffee shop is quite fantastic with a roof top as well. The street becomes the coffee shop and the shop becomes your street. 

Here’s another good example of a private residency turned into a lovely Italian restaurant. Every inch between the building has been used up for outdoor space business here in Garosugil.

This little and very much old school ” Oden” house is epitome of bohemian soul of Koreans.  Just right amount of space and your perfect friends sitting right next to you chatting and sipping. I find this place superbly designed thinking of your tired soul in mind.

Any Second floor offers  just important business opportunities as the ground floor in Seoul. Just like in Tokyo it’s a big metropolitan city that needs endless space for endless ideas.

After bit of wondering, here we sat down and had some street  food with a modern twist at ” School Food”.  It’s a restaurant where offers all the street food that every Korean had grew up on during the school years.  Above pic shows 9 flavor mini kimbap ( korean style maki roll)! Can you see the Squid ink rice maki with spicy squid inside?  The rest futures toasted baby anchovies, kimchi, tuna with fresh sesame leaf, bulgogi ( thinly sliced bbqed sirloin) and more. Yummy!

This Ttuck bocki will put your tongue on fire! The #1 street food for all the students in Korea. Rice cake simmered in spicy chili broth with onions, cabbage and oden bits. Water please!!

 Here some of cute shops on Garosugil. This shop called ” Happy Lady” had some great soft tops at reasonable price.

If you are visiting Seoul one day, Garisu gil is a place to check out. You will have fun strolling!

Seoul!

The charcoal man brings his small batch of charcoal. Then the circular grill that looks like one made out of bunch of metal chopsticks with center coverage. The light soy based dipping sauce with freshly chopped green scallion and young peppers does the job and also the super thinly sliced the beef Brisket. The thickness of the brisket will change everything. Now what do you do?  Wait until the grill gets sizzling hot then put the beef on the grill until it shrinks (cooks) to the perfection, dip it in the sauce and don’t forget to grab a good mount of scallion and the peppers. Delicious!!  You have an option to order a spicy Miso in a small pot and a bowl of rice to finish the meal! Ton of tofu and more chadolbeghi are in there! Yum!

2 organic graded Zucchini, half cup peeled and chopped shrimp, 1 organic whole egg, half cup flower, 1 cup seltzer water, sea salt, pepper. Make into a one big batter and pan fry  into a individual size on a hot griddle with olive oil until the edge gets crispy and brown. Deeeeelicious! The dipping sauce here is mixture of water, soy sauce and white vinegar. Mix them into 1:1:1 ratio.

1 shaved cucumber, 1 table spoon white vinegar, drizzle of olive oil, sea salt and couple of ice cubes. This is So summery, crunch and delicious!

Enjoy the Summer!

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