EATING FOR… KARAKALA RESTAURANT (BARCELONA)

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Today we take you to discover the cuisine of Lebanon thanks to the Karakala restaurant: Phoenician cuisine in the neighborhood of Gracia, one of our favorites in Barcelona! If you are marching through this area and you do not decide where to dine from among all the restaurants there are, this option will surprise you very positively!

The truth is that we really wanted to try Lebanese food, we had never tasted it and wow: what a crush! Also here we met Valentina, a super nice and attentive Italian girl ... if we Italians have a stub, I always say so, and with all the modesty haha! He attended us a thousand wonders, in each dish he told us something about Lebanese cuisine and made us feel at home (and we have also taken advantage of the opportunity to chat about what we like most: the trips of course!)

But let's go to the topic ... the food! We have opted for a tasting menu to try as many different flavors as possible ...

We start the evening with a beer Almaza, originally from there. We had never tried it and the truth is that we liked it very much: light and fresh! Valentina also brought us a snack of fried pita bread with zataar: a mixture of thyme, sesame, salt and sumac. And it is known that beer tastes better if it is accompanied by something to snack, right?

The time has come to try the first part of the menu: mezze. The mezze is a tasting of different entrees, in tapas, which are usually shared. Our mezze consisted of: HUMMUS: chickpea puree with sesame paste (tahina) and lemon.

BABA GANNUJ: grilled eggplant with pomegranate, onion, tomato and mint flavor.
JABBULE: a salad of tomato, onion, wheat, parsley with lemon and pistachios.
WARAK INAB: grape leaves stuffed with rice with vegetables and a touch of basil.
FALAFEL: chickpea, garlic and coriander croquettes with sesame sauce. They were much better than we did. Ok, they were definitely much better.
FATAIER: beef, pine nuts and onion empanadilla.

And as an accompaniment we had warm pita bread, yummy!

Everything was delicious, although if we have to give medals they would be taken by the baba gannuj, the falafel and the fataier. From the main course we decided to try one of meat and another of fish. Recommended by Valentina we decided on Laban Ommo and Calamares "Bibles".

LABAN OMMO It is a lamb stew with yogurt sauce accompanied by burghur (a kind of couscous that is made from wheat). Super good, both the lamb that was tender and deserved in the mouth, like yogurt sauce: mmm!

"BIBLOS" CALAMARES My mother, how rich they were: grilled squid bathed in a sumac sauce and accompanied by black rice mmm! Surely you are wondering what sumac is: Valentina told us that it is a reddish spice that gives a slightly acidic taste to meals. Eye that paints!

And dulcis in fundo, nothing better, dessert came: MHALABIE, a Lebanese flan accompanied by mint tea. The flan was delicious: it is different from the flan we all know, it is much cooler and not at all heavy. It is made with milk, cornstarch and rose water. Above it is bathed in syrup and ground pistachio. It was delicious!