Sagardi - Barcelona, Spain

On a Monday night, we set out to find a place to eat for dinner, using Le Cool, a hip little guidebook that Eric lent us, as a guide. We literally combed through the streets of the Riberia District, in between the Picasso Museum and the Jaume I metro stop looking for three separate restaurants, all of which were closed. We didn't know this at the time, but apparently a lot of restaurants will close on Monday instead of Sundays. We were out of luck. So three failed attempts later, we were left to our own devices, namely our noses and eyes.

Since we weren't too familiar with the area and didn't really know where else to go for dinner, we wandered around for awhile. While walking along one of the main roads, Carrer de l'Argenteria, we saw a brightly lit bar restaurant with its counter lined with plates and plates of small bite size appetizer looking things. The waitress suggested we eat some tapas at the bar while we wait for a table outside. We happily obliged.

Sagardi has Basque style tapas, which is usually fresh slices of bread topped with all sorts of hot and cold toppings. Each little tapas, also known as a pinxo, looks like different types of nigiri sushi, but instead of rice, they use bread as the base. It's a great way to sample different types of tapas and with a glass of wine, it can make for a fun and very filling meal.

Basically you just pick the pinxo of your choosing, each of which has a toothpick stuck in it. At the end, the waiter counts the number of toothpicks on your plate and you pay for the number of pinxos you ate. At Sagardi's, I think it was 1,20 euros per pinxo. I don't remember how many different types of pinxos they had but I'm sure we tried most of the items there.

Now for the pretty pictures. The pinxo on the top was mackerel with some lime zest, which worked wonders in cutting out the oiliness of the mackerel. The other white and purple pinxos were both flavored crab meat with grated cheese or vegetables on top.

There were other pinxos with croquettes (fried potato balls), smoked salmon, ham with mushrooms and goat cheese. The goat cheese one with the roasted tomato and fried pepper on top was really good.

I think the one on the left was a piece of omelet that they wrapped a sliced zucchini over. Next to that was a mini ham sandwich and below that was what I thought was a fried squid ring, but it was actually a disk of fried cheese with some sort of sauce in the middle. Doesn't it totally look like a squid ring to you? To the left of that was a stuffed red pepper.

We eventually made it to a table outside and the waitress brought out more freshly made or fried tapas for us to sample as well. Since they are so small you don't realize how much bread you end up consuming. I think between the two of us, we had twenty pinxos. I'm pretty certain I ate a whole baguette all by myself. So much for eating just a few appetizers. haha.

Sagardi

Carrer de L'Argenteria 62-64