"Caracoles!" (Snails.)
"Champiñones!" (Mushrooms.)
"Gambas!" (Prawns.)
Juan Bayen welcomes customers at Bar Pinotxo.
(Robert V. Camuto)
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"Mejillónes!" (Mussels.)
Two and three plates at a time arrived: steaming potatoes, fried Padron peppers, sauteed scallops and more. After taking our places, we ordered glasses of cava, the popular white sparkling wine, which Bayen poured instantly from an iced-down bottle behind the counter.
The bar has no written menu, and Bayen asked us what we would like to eat: "Pescado?" (fish) or "carne?" (meat). "Pescado," we responded, and Bayen rattled off a list that went right over my head. With a series of nods and mangled Spanish, we managed to order grilled gambas brochettes, mussels, grilled peppers and a few other things.
The first dish was something altogether different -- a warm plate of baby squid and light beans called chipirónescon mongetes, the bar's specialty. Bayen seemed to be saying that we needed to try this.
It was the best dish I'd never ordered, bathed in a warm sauce of olive oil and balsamic vinegar. The other dishes appeared, except for the mussels, which Bayen said were "finished." I switched to bonita, and out came a small portion of baked tuna in a delicious creamy onion sauce.
It was a meal I would willingly choose for my last, except that it all happened too quickly. And there was no time to sit back and linger. It was 3 o'clock and the Spanish lunchtime was in full swing, with a line of people pressing in behind us, ready to take our places.
'Round the Clock
Barcelona is today probably the youngest, most cosmopolitan city of southern Europe. And as such it wears several faces: the center for pierced and tattooed tribes in old Barcelona; the party town of waterfront discos; and the bourgeois Barcelona, with its chic boutiques, cafes and eccentric, turn-of-the-20th-century buildings by Antoni Gaudí and contemporaries.
