Ciudad Condal: Busy lunch time
Strolling the main shopping areas along Passeig de Gràcia and Rambla de Catalunya can build up an appetite. The best way to quell the hunger pains is with some tapas at Ciudad Condal (also called Ciutat Comtal, its Catalan equivalent). The place gets swamped with business folks during lunchtime and it's often difficult to get a table outside, but its worth the wait.

The baked goat cheese with roasted red peppers and eggplant and the Russian salad will get your mouth watering for the mushroom and asparagus or the Serrano ham plates. There are also some "comfort food" stand-bys available like hamburgers and cold sandwiches if you're not in a tapas mood. By the way, this is a cervecería, which means it has lots of beer options, too. You can throw back the local brew, Estrella Damm, or a clara, which is like a shandy with beer with lemon soda, or go for the more exotic international ales from Belgium, Germany, Japan or Australia.

Not far from Barcelona's beach district, you'll find the historic 7 Portes, the place where the stars go for some grub. No seriously, folks like Antonio Banderas, Yoko Ono, Charlton Heston, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Lou Reed and Michael Douglas have feasted on 7 Portes' generous portions of cannelloni, paella, fish stew and roast suckling pig . Even the current King of Spain Juan Carlos I and revolutionary Che Guevara chowed down here (presumably not at the same time). I guess if you've been serving up good food since 1836, you eventually get a reputation for drawing an upscale crowd, even if they are more of the tourist variety these days. That said, the restaurant, which has an authentic Old World feel to it, is often busy, but is open all day without interruption (not always a common thing here) from 1 p.m. to 1 a.m.