Not all restaurants in Barcelona are marvelous. Our least satisfactory meal was our first night’s dinner at the Hostal de la Bona Sort. On the surface, it was attractive, in an old building on the street of the wool carders in the Born area with its streets so full of its textile milling past. It was filled only with locals, several of whom were at the barstools on our left as we entered. The walls were decorated with many artifacts like baskets, old milk buckets, pictures of rural villages -- the atmosphere seemed homey and casual. We waited a good five minutes till a young girl approached us with a menu; we got the impression she wasn’t a waitress usually, just the owners’ daughter pressed into emergency service. We were tired and hungry, though still exhilarated from our Santa Maria del Mar visit, so we quickly decided what we wanted, but waited another five minutes or so till the menu giver returned. Mark had seafood paella, I ordered regular paella, and my husband ordered pork cutlet. Two local beers and a Fanta completed our order. The total tab was 33.95 euros, which is not cheap, as that translated into $40.29, but not expensive either.

We waited a long time, at least 25 minutes till the food arrived. My paella was very dry and it certainly had not been made with saffron. Later on, I read that this lack of saffron is characteristic of paella here. Valencia, where the dish originated, is the place for paella lovers like me. The rice was very stiff and not tasty. Chicken thigh pieces appeared in this paella, though no more than three tiny ones. Our son’s paella was similarly sparsely dotted with seafood, mainly a few tiny shrimp. My husband’s cutlet was covered with a tomato sauce he declared to be "barely edible." Since our son and I only picked at the paella, leaving much of the dry rice uneaten, we ordered flans for dessert -- these were O.K.

Because of the slow service, we spent over an hour in this restaurant and it was 9:37pm according to our receipt when we left to head back to the apartment. Since it was dark and we were obliged to traverse the Barri Gotic’s unfamiliar and narrow streets, travelers weary from a troubled arrival, we probably seemed likely pickpocket targets to the youths we soon encountered in the nearby Praca San Marcos.