Restaurant Profile: El Timbal

On my first night living in Poblenou, my roommates and I decided to go out and take a long walk around the neighborhood to explore our surroundings.  About a block away from our apartment we ran into a small tapas restaurant called “El Timbal”.  We sat down at a table outside to grab a beer and some tapas, and talked to our waiter for a long time asking him about Barcelona.

I don’t speak the best Spanish, but I was able to converse with him pretty easily.  One of my friends is also very good at the language, so he helped.  We decided as a group that El Timbal would be a restaurant during our time in Barcelona.  We would try to go there a few times a week, even if it was just to grab a beer.  We have since become fairly regular visitors to the restaurant, and I have a lot of great memories from the time I have spent there.  We are also pretty friendly with the waiter who served us on the first day, because he works there almost every day.

My favorite dish at El Timbal is a sandwich called Kiki.  It is a very plain creation: grilled chicken breasts with mayo and a tomato sauce between a fresh baguette.  Even writing about it right now is making my mouth water.  For starters I always order the same appetizer, the patatas bravas.  They just consist of several large hunks of fried potato covered in a special house sauce.  I am not sure what exactly is in the sauce because our waiter won’t tell us the exact recipe, but I know there is definitely a mix of mayonnaise and paprika, along with different types of pepper.  All this is only made better as I wash most of my meals down with a cold glass of Estrella Damm.  When I leave Barcelona I will definitely miss eating at El Timbal.