Spain: Can Majó

Here's concrete proof that my friends and I plan our vacations based on what and where we want to eat: we often find ourselves at a loss for what to do with our time between meals.

Which is how we ended up first sitting on a public bench then huddling behind a parked truck to hide from the cold wind, waiting for Can Majó to finally open.  We didn't have a reservation and we wanted to make sure we got in right when the doors opened.

Which we did:  

We did try to get some bombas at La Bombeta while we were waiting, but La Bombeta was closed.  (Cue dismayed gasps.)

Our patience paid off and we were directed to a table without waiting at all.  Soon after we sat down, the restaurant started to fill up:

We were handed an English menu and away we went.  Once our orders were out of the way, we sat down to wait.  We were first brought a plate of complimentary bread spread with some kind of tomato jam:

Then came the little dish of olives, pickles, and pickled onion:

Finally came our entire reason for dining at Majo.  The paella.  Majo offers a few different kinds of paella.  The price listed on the menu is the price per portion.  To order a paella, you need to order at least two portions.  The three of us decided to order two portions each of two paellas.

We went with the classic shellfish paella marinera (15.32 € per portion):

To try something new, we went with the squid ink (15.32 € per portion) for our second one:

We had a choice between rice and fideua.  Our server explained to us that fideua was essentially thin, short bits of noodle.  Cool.  We wanted to try that.

The guy who brought us the huge pans of paella was nice enough to wait patiently as three little Asian girls snapped photos to our heart's delight before dishing out our individual servings.  And dude, how cute is this?:

The fideua squid ink was a bit salty for me, but the shellfish paella was great...with liberal squeezes of lemon.  There was definitely more than enough food for the three of us.  Since we couldn't take anything to go, we forced ourselves to finish every last bite.

Even though we were stuffed, we couldn't turn down dessert.  I'm not a flan fan, but T is, so we ordered the small egg flan in three flavors, chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry (5.49 €):

It looked pretty.  But it still tasted like the flan that I know and dislike.  I don't know...that eggy texture just gets to me.  Sorry flan lovers!

Great paella, but I wasn't exactly blown away.  And I really wanted to be.  If I ever go back to Barcelona, I'll be on the lookout for another paella place.

Can Majó is a great place for a romantic date or to meet the future in-laws.  Probably not the kind of place you want to wear shorts and flip flops to.  If you're looking for paella, go in packs of even numbers.  (It makes ordering much easier.  Really.)

So ended our time in Barcelona.  Lisbon up next!


Can Majó
Almirante Aixada, 23
08003 Barcelona, Spain
93 221 5455
http://www.canmajo.es/