Barcelona Bounty: Dining at Paco Meralgo

My best dining experience in Barcelona was at Paco Meralgo, a highly praised restaurant located in the city's L'Eixample neighborhood. This tapas bar has a cool atmosphere -- it is well-lit featuring modern decor with wooden tables and stools, and full of smartly dressed locals (I think we were the only tourists in the place -- more often than not a good sign). On to the delicious food: The patatas bravas. Fried potatoes coated with spicy oil-based sauce:

Baby octopus with candied onions:

Smoked salmon on bread. Many tapas in Spain are prepared on top of a small piece of bread. We were at a "pay as you pick" tapas bar at one point where everything came on top of stale white bread (fried meatballs, anchovies, etc.) Since this was a pretty classy joint, more thought went into the assembly of the platters, and so not everything came with bread. This salmon was reminiscent of one particular New York food, namely lox.

And last but not least, melted brie on bread with a lone olive atop: