Barcelona has joined the ranks of New York, London, Rio de Janeiro, and... Atlantic City? by hosting its inaugural Restaurant Week from February 20-28. Coming off the back of the million-man Mobile World Congress hosted in Barcelona last week, this Restaurant Week was perfectly timed. Obviously the hospitality industry has taken a hit as of late and what better way to re-kindle interest in all the city has to offer than to publicize special 25EUR menus at some of the top restaurants?

Needless to say, Lauren and I will be partaking. Yesterday, we had a delicious lunch at Hisop. We were a little dismayed once we realized that the restaurant regularly offers a 25EUR menu on most week days AND week nights but, as we had to point out to the waitress, the Restaurant Week menu is tax free and 1EUR is donated to charity.

While 25EUR seems expensive compared to NYC's gimmicky $20.10 (or whatever year it is - if they still do that?), we were delighted to find that the restaurant pulled out all of the stops and didn't simply prepare the cheapest dishes from their a la carte menus (as they often do in NYC and other cities). With two amuse bouches, a starter, a main, a palate cleanser, and a dessert, we got our Euros' worth and felt special all the while. Oh! but they did neglect to offer us cheeky test-tubes filled with what could only be cava at the end of the meal. All the Catalan patrons got them! As did a British patron with pink hair! Lauren almost blew a gasket.

We have a couple of Michelin-star stars to check out in the next couple of days and will keep you posted with any great finds.

Barcelona Turisme, bravo!

Barcelonins, get your chow on!

From our friend Anthony...

To Bulli or not to Bulli

After our pilgrimage to San Sebastian to eat at two of the world's top restaurants (Mugaritz and Asador Etxebarri), we've set our sights a little higher this year. In fact, we've set our sights to the top, numero uno, El Bulli. The restaurant is closing in 2012, and I'm leaving Spain this summer to return to business school, so we figured this was the year to eat there. El Bulli has been ranked the number one restaurant in the world for the last four years, and in 2002. The chef, Ferran Adrià, the forefather of the molecular gastronomy movement, is considered a god among chefs. The 3-star Michelin restaurant only serves 8,000 diners a year, and gets over 2 millions reservation requests during the 15 day period that it accepts reservations.

This year, a few of those reservation requests were ours. Between Lee, our friend David and me, we've sent 6 reservation requests. They've started to respond to them slowly. Four have been rejected, and we're waiting to hear on two of them. It's become something of an obsession for us - checking other blogs and twitters to figure out what our chances are and how to increase our odds. We've thought about getting letters of recommendation from Carles Abellan, the chef at our beloved Tapas 24. Maybe we should stalk Ferran's little brother, Albert (also the pastry chef at El Bulli), at his restaurant Inopia. Lee and I are considering driving up to Roses a few times so that they know our face in addition to weekly calls to check for cancellations.

I'm still not giving up hope. Stay tuned for updates.