Once we got back to the hotel from our hike down the tower we walked around the area near our hotel and found a German hot dog restaurant…..it was a nice walk, the people were very friendly and the drinks were cold.
After a little rest and recovery time, and some refreshment, we walked around the area a little more and decided to take a rest before dinner. But where would we go for dinner?
Hotel Front Desk? Worth a shot, right. They saw us coming and they were prepared for our questions. The front desk staff was very helpful and answered all of our questions about the local restaurants on their recommended list. We wanted some place local but wanted to be able to walk. Was the area safe to do that? Yes!!
Dinner was going to be a paella restaurant – we were in Spain after all. The restaurant was a 10 minute walk from the hotel in a residential neighborhood. Yes, it was safe to walk there after dark.
After a rest and change of clothes off we went to Xativa L’Arrosseria (www.grupxativa.com) in Les Corts. Following the instructions from the hotel we walked through an old neighborhood and down a tree-lined street to see a little store front restaurant. They knew when we walked through the door we were tourists.
Everything smelled wonderful and they were very crowded for an early-ish dinner for Barcelona. Dinner usually doesn’t start until 9 we found out.
The owner ushered us to a small table in the back of the restaurant and we did our best to order dinner, we don’t speak much Spanish. We ordered appetizers that were like flat bread pizza with tomato sauce and then we waited for our seafood paella. It was worth the wait. We drank wine while we waited and the owner came back a few times to check on us. I guess we looked a little out of place for the local restaurant.
This was exactly what we wanted to find, a local restaurant, lovely walk and lots of friendly people and wonderful local food. We had better keep track of that business card so we can come back on our next trip to Barcelona.