Photo Story: Tapas at Mercat St Antoni – A Snails Breakfast

mercat st antoni snails with sauce
Delicious..

In a previous post, I mentioned that while Mercat St Antoni isn’t exactly a market bursting with flavour and colour, I enjoyed the authentic experience of living like a local.

And we did enjoy our breakfast at Mercat St Antoni immensely.

It wasn’t the usual breakfast, comprising tortillas, pizza or bread. We had snails with sauce, coffee and a flatbread with sausage. Now that I think about it, we risked being judged by the locals – who are wondering to themselves – why are these two small Asia fellas having snails at 9.30am in the morning. But yeah, my policy still holds. When on holiday, just do whatever you feel like doing.

mercat st antoni tapas bar
Dishes just laid out. The bar is quite empty at first, and later gets more crowded.

* * *

Tapas at Mercat St Antoni

Snails with sauce, also known as Caracoles – €5 (Ca-la-co-less)

mercat st antoni snails with sauce
Snails and coffee any one?

The snails went quite perfectly with the sauce. They appeared to have been braised for quite some time. Unlike the French escargots which I have tried back in Singapore for SGD2 per piece, a plate of these costs €5 and definitely packed a punch. The flavour of the gravy had seemed into the meat and it had a nice texture. The escargots I had tasted typical were baked with butter, garlic and cheese, and were really good. But the savoury version of this was just nice as well. Yum. I’ll be back for more.

Flatbread with sausages

mercat st antoni snails with sauce
Oh boy, these were good.

* * *

mercat st antoni
Flatbread with sausages.

I can’t remember the price anymore, but I really liked this pizza like bread thing. Apart from the sausages, it is baked with herbs, green peppers and sundried tomatoes. Made for a delightful and filling breakfast.

* * *

Fish stew – Cherry Tomatoes, Fish and Seafood

mercat st antoni tapas bar
This looks so awesome. Think it’s like a fish stew, made up of fish, tomatoes and squid.

* * *

Cod fish on display

mercat st antoni tapas bar
The cod fish looked really tempting

* * *

Some other sights

We caught sight of an elderly later reading the morning paper, while having some buns and bread on her plate. Next to her, was a rather delectable glass of ice-cold beer. Así es la vida (This is life.)

mercat st antoni tapas
Fancy a beer for breakfast?
mercat st antoni tapas bar
Buns for breakfast. More like breakfast food.
mercat st antoni tapas bar
That’s the proprietor (I think). He doesn’t speak much English but seems to be quite good.

Just so if you are looking for this tapas bar, it’s right in front of the entrance of the market. (See picture below). I don’t have the name for it, because it’s really quite a local place. It’s easy to locate though, so no worries.

mercat st antoni renovated
That’s the new building. The tapas bar is right next to the entrance.

We can finally move on to our next post on the Barceloneta Beach! Wooh! : )