So it was Monday evening in Barcelona. Fiona, Trevor, Treve and I headed down from the hotel to the Plaça Catalunya, and from here down the tourist-infested but still very attractive La Rambla. Then, up a graffiti-encrusted street right just after the opera house we came to Cañete Barra, which had been recommended to us. It was everything you’d want from a high-end tapas bar.

We sat at the bar, the best place to be, and went through a succession of beautifully executed small plates. Considering the bustling nature of the place – full to the seams, even on a Monday night – service was really good.

My favourite dish, apart from the fabulous padron peppers (which is always my favourite), was a Spanish take on a corn dog. I’ve never had a corn dog, and Treve says that I don’t need to go out of my way to try one, but this was really tasty – a thin chorizo sausage fried in a pancake coating. It was delicious.

We had lots of fried things. There’s something immensely comforting about food that has been fried, although you can have too much of a good thing. So we had some vegetable dishes too, including a brilliant riff around the theme of green beans.

To drink? Beer to start. We were hardly hungry, having finished a gazillion course three-michelin star-type lunch at 5 pm, so beer seemed a good beginning. Although they didn’t have a proper beer list, just a couple of average St Moritz beers on tap. Then we went to Cava, and from there to the Petalos Bierzo: comfort Spanish red wine for me.

The Cava was a new one to me that came highly recommended: Juve y Camps, and it was really good, in a pure, bright, fruity style. The Petalos was its usual generous, balanced, fresh fruity self, and both were relative bargains in the mid-20 Euros, if I recall correctly (actually, the Cava might have crept into the 30s. Whatever).

Such a fun evening, and it was testament to the quality of the Cañete food that even though we had arrived pretty full, we still managed to eat lots over a prolonged period.