ORIO RESTAURANT, BARCELONA, SPAIN

ORIO RESTAURANT

BARCELONA, SPAIN

While taking a stroll in the rain trough the charming Gothic section of Barcelona we stubbled upon a Tapa Bar that featured seafood. The place looked clean and fresh so we entered and sat at one of the large communal type tables in the middle of the space. Along the bar there were dozens of small size plates of food to sample. The waiter explained that it was ($1.95 Euro's) each for a plate. Kind of like going out for Genki Sushi in Honolulu but instead of counting the plates these folks count the toothpicks. We tried a variety of seafood toppings placed on a nice piece of french bread. I liked the tuna with pimento best. The Chorizo Sausage was good and so was the tuna with fried leeks. One with hot peppers, anchovie and olive was good too. Keli liked the simple salami with cheese best. We ate until we were full but were not totally impressed with the flavors. Everything is served with bread so you get full quite quickly. The waiter was friendly and gladly served a Spanish Champagne that was great. One of the reasons we ended up eating here is that it was one of the only restaurants open around 12:00 pm. Most restaurants don't open for lunch until 1:30. We had picked the oldest restaurant in Barcelona to dine at this day, but it turned out they did not open until 1:30. My girls wanted to eat NOW as they did not have dinner the night before. We also found that restaurants open around 8:30 for dinner. Typical dinner time is 9:00 to 11:00 pm which is our family sleep time. We ended up missing dinner today because the girls fell asleep. This was good because we all need a good rest after our adventure to get here.

ORIO RESTAURANT - BARCELONA, SPAIN