The Dish That Saved Barcelona

For five days I ate nothing but crap; a watery paella seemingly inspired by Pot Noodle, the kind of deep-fried seafood tapas Captain Birdseye would have thrown back into the sea, a tiny plate of lukewarm arroz negra with a thick crust, and a late-night Primavera Sound kebab so dripping with oil it made Exxon Valdez seem inconsequential by comparison.

I was determined to eat well on my final day in Barcelona. In an overheated hostel dorm just off Las Ramblas, I searched Chowhound and eGullet in search of a tapas bar to make Catalonia proud. Several punters had raved about Quimtas & Quimtas, a tiny bar near Paral.lel station. Shelves of wine took up every available spare inch of wall space; a group of regulars occupied all the bar stools. I bided my time and eventually found standing room at the bar. The meal lasted no longer than 15 minutes. I'd ordered a seafood plate, bite-sized morsels of mussels and cockles, and a meat plate loaded with pates and cured meats. It was good, but paled in comparison to my evening meal at Cervecería El Vaso de Oro.

This time it took even longer to find standing room at the bar. The staff didn't speak a word of English so when the people next to me agreed to order of my behalf and thought I'd make it easy for them. I was going to eat the steak and foie gras too. I've been through periods of avoiding foie gras for ethical reasons, but – and this is no decent excuse – it was my last meal in Barcelona and this shit looked amazing. It was. The foie, steak and onion, with bread, pimiento peppers and beer, was the best meal I've had in two years.

Singing in the Rain

It just had to rain.

I'd picked up a standing ticket for a fiver at Shakespeare's Globe, which while giving you the best view going, is a guaranteed paddling pool when it pisses it. But when you're watching Che Walker's Frontline, a play set on the streets of Camden Town, you wouldn't want it any other way.

A junkie curled up on a cardboard box, a needle entering his arm half a yard from my left shoulder. I watched his all-too-realistic injection up close, and with waterlogged shoes and my trousers soaked through, empathised (in a horribly privileged, middle-class way) with everybody in London who had to sleep on the streets that night. It was powerful theatre.

I feared the worst kind of yoof entertainment, a hackneyed attempt to write about the streets. But the cast of 'invisibles', the kind of people you don't notice or purposefully try to avoid, were rich, three-dimensional characters. The first half overflows with youthful energy, as an assortment of Jesus freaks, prostitutes, lap dancers, bouncers, boxers, demented pensioners, drug dealers, desperate actors and Scottish hot dog vendors compete for our attention. But the second half is more committed to telling a story, and the final scene, in which an Ethiopian dealer is murdered, is moving.

The Francesinha and the Long Walk Home

"How many calories are in this thing?" I asked the waiter.

"About 3,000," he replied. "And that's just in the sauce."

I ate a whole francesinha à cunha. A francesinha is Porto's contribution to the culinary world, a madly bad-for-you take on the French croque-monsieur. The francesinha à cunha at this fine establishment, according to the local who tipped me off - and Google, it seems - is famed for being the biggest in town.

It consists of two slices of bread, two steaks, a load of cured meat, a fair few slices of ham, melted cheese, a fried egg and a sauce made out of beer, wine, port, brandy and various other secret ingredients. It comes with French fries, a bowl of pastries, and, in my case, a bottle of vinho verde, the wonderfully fresh white wine from the north of Portugal.

It was absurd, delicious and immobilising. I felt like I'd gulleted a cannonball, gained a first fold of a Portuguese port-belly.

"You must only eat these once a week, maximum," my knowledgable waiter said. "But I eat at least three. Because I am strong."

I've added "eat francesinhas every day for a week" to my list of spectacular ways to die.