Barcelona Travel Forum

Hi

I am taking my partner on a surprise visit to Barcelona for his birthday and as an extra surprise we are meeting his sister and his best friend there. I need to arrange for a place to meet his sister and friend. We land at 7pm so will probably be at hotel, check in, shower etc and be ready about 9pm. We (and the friend) are staying at Barcelo Sants which is the hotel built on top of the Central Train Station Sants Estació, his sister is staying at Hostel Campi which I think is near El Triangle and Catalunya Metro station. I need to find a nice meeting place for the extra surprise, preferrably a nice bar with food which is not too expensive and also which is easy for all of us to get to and also easy to get back to the hotel again. As his sister will be going back to Hostel Campi on her own, I think it would be a good idea if it was near the Hostel Campi. I have never been to Barcelona before, so I don't even know where to start!

Any suggestions would be very welcome!!!

Try La Dama Restaurant.
Nice place and very good food:
http://www.ladama-restaurant.com/EDICAT_OK.htm

Enjoy.
Guillem.

Citrus at Passeig de Gràcia, 44 is excellent. It's easy to find since it's right across the road from one of the famous Gaudi houses (the one with the balconies).

Citrus has also been reviewed on VT so check
http://www.virtualtourist.com/travel/Europe/Spain/Catalunya/Barcelona-274654/Restaurants-Barcelona-Citrus-BR-1.html

Restaurant site is at
http://citrus.angrup.com/citrus-restaurant-barcelona/citrus-adress.html

If you are looking for a Tapas Bar style place, try Txapela (also on Passeig de Gràcia). The food here is also great but it has more of a relaxed bar type atmosphere.

http://txapela.angrup.com/

I'm not sure where this is in relation to where you are staying - sorry.

there is a place in plaza universitat, in between the two metros. it is called cata 181 and is my absolute favorite place to bring guests. www.cata181.com check it out!

another place on the other side of plaza catalunya is the george payne irish bar. it´s a great place to catch up over drinks, and with the drink specials and atmosphere they have you´ll have an amazing time. george payne irish bar, plaza urquinaona 5. thegeorgepayne.com

good luck!

Hi zuluchick, We hope we are not too late with our excellent suggestions where to take your friend on a surprise dinner for his birthday. To give you an idea, a fine restaurant (which happens to be one of my favourites)would be taking him to something like (Botafumeiro Restaurant) which is located on Travesera de Gracia). Approximately, per person would be around 60 Euros. (That would include a bottle of Riojo, a regular desert, seafood or meat and that includes the tip). Now I would strongly suggest that you call for reservations at least a day prior. If your not a smoker, request a non smoking table. My wife has terrible allergies with smoke, so those are one of our priorities. NOW, I have another excellent suggestion where you could take your friend to have the most local yummy taste and very Catalan ambiance (as the owner is a wholly Catalan "Tony", the owner). It's another favourite of my whole family where we take any guests whom we wish to impress when it comes to the best tapa taste and service is nothing but the best, fastest, excellent food handling. The bar/restaurant is called CERVESERIA CATALANA! Dinner here in Spain normally starts at 9pm, however, you will still see families arriving at Bars and Restaurants as late as having dinner at 11 pm, this is very normal, the same thing goes for lunch, locals have lunch at 2 or even 3 in the afternoon. Well, lets go back to our second excellent suggestion for your friends surprise birthday dinner. Cerveseria Catala has the excellent tapas you will ever taste, the price is very affordable, the place is very casual yet to us it's the best tapa bar/restaurant in Barcelona. Cerveseria Catalana is located in : Rambla Catalunya and is in the corner of Calle Mallorca. The address is:
236 Calle Mallorca.The difference between Botafumero and Cerveseria Catalana is when you go to Botafumero you will need to dress up a little bit as well as you will need to call and make your reservations whereas in CERVESERIA CATALANA, no reservations are accepted and come as you please. We hope our favourite waiter I think his name is Jorde (who is a Catalan, super service you may expect), we also were served couple of times by these fellow i think his name is : Willy, who speaks fluent in Catalan, what a service they all give their guests! One of my favourite dish is SOLO MIO- this is tenderloin stake grilled in super high fire and presented to you in b-bque stick and on each end is green sweet bell pepper. On both bar sides, there are about 100 different dishes, seafoods as well as meat, walk and just point the food you wish to order to the waiter and they will be happy to take it to your table! A fine restaurant you must avoid going to from our experience is called: 7 PORTERS! The do have very good advertisements for naive tourist! Food is no at all recommendable and very expensive. Avoid going to 7 Porters which is located in: Passeo Santa Isable- avoid these place, expensive and food taste like food from canned goods and service is terrible.
Since these is your first time in Barcelona.The first thing you wish to invest is a good moneybelt.Pickpocketing here is very rampant, they normally act like they are tourists themselves, so you would not suspect them being next to you, they work in 2 or 3 groups and whatever they steal is divided within themselves, so you can vizualize what kind of a contests it is, meaning the more they succeed stealing from at least 5 tourists half a day, then each individual gets only a portion.So, invest on a moneybelt which you can tuck inside your pants or skirt and have few euros easy access for small spending, like metro, taxi and etc. There is so much to see in BCN, do check our Barcelona page, starting from transportation from airport to the city and touristic places to visit. In the meantime we wish you nothing but the best visit here in Barcelona and we hope you will have great happy memories of the city that you will return again. Thank You for taking time reading our advises we hope we were able to help you in one way or another! Cheers!

Thank you so much for all your help. I think we are going to meet at txapala on the first night as it is easy for all of us to get to. We are in Barcelona for 4 days so will try out the others on the other days, thank you so much for your help, it is greatly appreciated!