Worst Meal EVER - Restaurant Marcos Barcelona

So the Hussyband and I have just gotten back from his annual birthday trip, we had lots of amazing meals, a few too many jamon baguettes, and one meal that was so bad we actually left as it made us ill just looking at it.

Friday night we were wandering around the University area of Barcelona, and came across a little restaurant with some nice looking outside tables. It was still early, only 9pm (that is early for dinner in Spain!) Now here we ignored one of what is normally our cardinal rules, we were going to eat in a restaurant that advertised it had an English menu. 

But we hadn't had much for lunch at the beach that day so were famished. We elected to eat inside as there were a few smokers outside....and this is where our trouble starts.

Inside we order a nice bottle of Albariño, Hussy went for a start of beef carpacio, and I went for the calamari. They placed starter plates out for us to share...they were dirty. They we noticed strange red floaters in our white wine. OK.

His beef was covered in so much Parmesan you could not tell what the meat looked like, the condiments container have a couple of millimetres of dust bunnies in the bottom of it so we ignored using them. My calamari came out about 10 mins later - swimming. No, it wasn't still alive, it was swimming in oil as they had obviously not gotten the fryer hot enough before cooking the dish, so it had absorbed the equivalent of the Mediterranean Sea that was leaking out through the paper doilies conveniently hiding another dirty plate.

By this stage we were getting worried, and queasy. Five minutes later our mains came out....Hussybands' was first - hake in a basque specialty sauce. The fish was grey. The sauce was grey. The potatoes were grey. The white asparagus that is not even in season was grey. The clams were grey and more withered than a nuns clitoris. Winter days in London are less grey than this dish was...and Hussybands' face was quickly turning puce to match.

Then out came my lobster and monkfish. The lobster should have been thrown back it was so small - i have seen prawns bigger. The monkfish had been battered and deep fried. It was all swimming in an oily, luminous yellow, gelatinous sauce. I took one look and gagged. How could you do that to monkfish?!?!?!?! IT IS INHUMANE!

We sculled our wine. Called over the waiter, advised him we were not staying as we felt ill (well we did! and we would have been if we had eaten that lot!), paid the complete bill (I am a softie) and left. Quickly.

The thought of food by then was making us ill, so we did the only thing we could do at this stage....we went and consumed our calories for the night via alcohol.

Where not to eat in Barcelona:
Restaurant Marcos
Carrer Disputacio 172, E-08011 Barcelona