We plough on through our restaurant list, but more dining in our luxury flat is what I'd do next time

Americans in Europe often end up on "ABC trips".  Keen to see all they can and afraid they'll never be back, they jam-pack every day with sightseeing, leading to the sighing fatigue of "another bloody cathedral".

Barcelona could suffer from ABR syndrome.  Another bloody restaurant.

On too many evenings, we were still full from lunch and had no need for another big meal.  Yet our desire to work through our tipped restaurant list won out over our lack of hunger.  So out we went, and more stuffed we became.  But we had a grand old time.

Our most off-the-beaten-track foray was to Bilbao, a resolutely local spot in the Gracia district, about a 15-minute stroll from our hotel.  Two brightly lit rooms, simple wooden tables and cafe chairs, a random smattering of local art on the wall; the place has the look of a neighbourhood spot that's been here for decades.  And, in fact, I'm pretty sure that's what it was.  We were the only English speakers present and, though they had English menus, nobody spoke the lingo.  (Fortunately, Hillary's Spanish is excellent.)

The highlight here was the starter.  A prawn salad where the chilled, cooked shellfish was tossed with endive, small marinated mushrooms, carrots, broad beans and golden raisins, then dressed simply with oil and vinegar.  It sounds like nothing special but was a masterful combination, one so good all three of us were deconstructing it in hopes of reproduction.  Of the mains, I won the lottery with a fillet steak that was about as perfect as they come.  A brown, hot exterior crusted with sea salt, a rare interior tender as a baby's kiss.  Served with the inevitable fried green pimientos.  Hillary had lamb, which she reported was average but not a patch on my steak, and Lisa made the mistake of ordering salt cod.  

Mistake, becaue she was thinking of a lovely cod fillet.  Salt cod, much beloved by the Spanish, is slabs of fish that have been preserved by burying them in salt 'til they're essentially fossilised.  You can re-hydrate them with water or milk, and then cook a variety of dishes.  Pre-refrigeration, this is how most Europeans got fish, and the Spaniards have never lost the taste for it.  But the texture is different frm fresh and unless you soak multiple times with changes of liquid, it's inevitably very salty.  If you're expecting fresh fish then, like Lisa, you'll probably be unimpressed.  (Her dish came out cold the first time around, which also didn't help.)

A trendier choice was Alba Granados, one of a string of fashionable spots clustered along a street heaving with prosperous looking young professionals in the Eixample district.  With its wooden floors, white linens and open kitchen behind a glass wall at the back, it felt like New York.  But the menu was all Spanish.  Here, salt cod worked beautifully in a starter of cod puffs; other starters were  green beans and rolled cod with tomato and olive.  Mains:  chorizo and prawns, squid in a cream sauce and tuna.  None were anything exraordinaty, but all very good.  The desserts were the least impressive part of the meal.  Lisa had a chocolate fondue with fruit for dipping (it looked impressive due to the artfully arranged dish, but it's a dead simple dish), I some sort of chocolate brownie thing and Hillary, expecting a cheese platter, got cheesecake.  The most memorable thing about the meal was the wine:  Mauro Valladolid from Castilla & Leon.

Back before meeting up with the girls I did a business dinner at La Gavina, on the port.  With starched white tablecloths, a great view, modern art and foreign waitresses, it was more "international business" than local colour.  My extraordinary steak had the trademark salt crust and fried pimientos, but my dessert of a combination of pastries could have been served in any business class restaurant around the world.  Unsurprisingly, the business setting was matched by business prices and this, though unmemorable, was my most expensive of the trip.

I mentioned in the last entry that on another visit I'd probably do most of my evening meals at home, assuming I was in an apartment rather than a hotel.

This is an interesting choice for European travel and is becoming more common, as almost every major city now seems to have a market of good apartments let on a per-night basis to tourists.  Depending on number of people, this can be cheaper than an equivalent quality hotel.  (That was not the case for us, coming out at around £120 per person per night, but would have been so had our trio been the quartet the place could have slept.)  But whether or not it is, it will always give you more room, plus kitchen and dining facilities that can cut down on dining costs.

We stayed in a two bedroom apartment attached to the Murmuri hotel.  This was undoubtably on the high end, with a generously sized sitting room, dining area, double room, twin bedded room, two bathrooms, galley kitchen and balcony big enough to eat on.  We found a bottle of cava and chocolate covered strawberries waiting for us, thanks to Hillary's membership in the "Mr. & Mrs. Smith" club through which she booked, and a Nespresso machine in the kitchen with enough capsules to get us through morning one and a store nearby to provide extras.

This is the first time I've stayed in an apartment with a hotel affiliation and it adds a welcome bit of pampering.  Like a regular hotel, you get toiletries, cleaning and a helpful front desk, but you're in a quieter apartment building off a side street around the corner from the lobby entrance.  It's a set-up I'll look for in other hotels in the future.