My wife and I are going to Barcelona for 5 days in early September. We both love to eat good food and we're wondering what to expect.

What is typical for lunch/dinners?

You can eat all the tapas you want or if you go to regular sit down restaurants you'll find a variety of meat and fish. One of the best things I had in Barcelona were red peppers stuffed with a marinated cod that was fantastic. I thought the food in Spain was very good although it won't make me forget Italy. The food was cheap too.

Oh, I forgot...if you like food, tour the open air food market on Las Ramblas. You'll see things there that are amazing.

Barcelona is a cosmopolitan world city, so you'll find all kinds of cuisine, from Lebanese shwarama sandwiches, to sidewalk Chinese restaurants along the Ramblas to French bistros. There are plenty of places for traditional Spanish food (even though Barcelona is definitely not traditionally Spanish). La Boqueria, a big market along the Ramblas, features a restaurant where you can sample lots of Catalan and Spanish dishes really inexpensively.

I agree, buongiorno...our trip to Italy last summer was amazing! The food there is to die for! It's going to be hard to match the flavors we experienced in Italy.

I would love to experience some authentic Spanish/Catalan food, but think I'm going to be dying for a good ol' traditional burrito or tacos.

by350, if it's burritos and tacos you're going to want, you might need to change your plane tickets for Mexico or the US Southwest.

Salty. We were horrified by the amount of salt that was in ALL the food we had while in Barcelona.

Assuming that you are American, I would caution you to go easy on foods containing a lot of olive oil. If you don't and your innards work like mine, stick close to a toilet. You will find Catalonian cooking (very different from that served elsewhere in Spain), to be heavy on seafood, with excellent bread, lots of fresh vegetables. I am allergic to garlic so subsisted on bread and cheese to a large extent. My downfall came when I sopped hunks of bread in an olive oil sauce. Delicious but dangerous.

I thought the food in Barcelona was terrific overall--and DH and I don't like salty food. One restaurant I'd highly recommend is La Dolca Herminia at Magdolanes 27--2 blocks towards Ramblams from Palais de la Musica. The food was delicious and very inexpensive and they even had a non-smoking section.