Always, always, since I was little, I have been interested in what "the others" eat. I remember well my emotion, my feeling of "building a memory" ---as the Nabokovs would say in front of the ship that was to take them, along with their son Dimitri, to America--- when trying, for the first time, sushi, in Barcelona. I would say that Yamadori (the one on Aribau street) is the first Japanese restaurant in the city (it's from '77). Japanese or Chinese or Tibetan or American... All these simplifications fascinate me. The first Kentucky Fried Chicken drove me crazy, just as that first vending machine at Núria, on La Rambla, thrilled me.
Digression! One day we have to talk about vending machines, because in reality, in reality, the first ones date back to the 1st century BC and dispensed... holy water for temples.
Back to what we were saying. Yours truly, if I see a restaurant, for example, Tibetan, I have to stop and start reading names of dishes and... end up eating a soup (I think it's called thukpa) suitable for climbing Everest. Barcelona, for me, has always had this appeal: Do you want Japanese, do you want Mexican, do you want Peruvian, do you want traditional Catalan cuisine? What do you want? You have it.
Because of this quirk of mine, whenever I meet someone from another latitude, I ask them if they cook, where they buy ingredients (they usually tell me "in La Boquería") and if they have a trusted restaurant to go to.
Thanks to this, I have discovered wonderful Mexican, Peruvian, or Chinese restaurants. At the school gate, I made friends with a Moroccan family (the indestructible friendship of snacks in the park, the fateful school DIY day, and the end-of-year pastries). When this family observed Ramadan, we talked a lot. I told them that eating too much at night, after a day of fasting, would kill some stomachs, but not mine. And one day they invited me to dinner with them. The woman cooked wonderfully, and you cannot imagine what it was like.
Table set: linen tablecloths, golden plates... And the food! First dates, then, harira soup. How can I describe harira soup to you? I could say it has chickpeas, meat, vegetables... but that wouldn't do it justice. All soups are very similar and very different and all interest me. My friend's was made by pureeing vegetables and thickening the result with flour. And, like Paul Bocuse's Giscard d'Estaing soup, but without truffle, (have you tried it?) it was accompanied by a puff pastry bread in which angels sang (if I may be allowed the interreligious moment). My friend knew that one of the Moroccan dishes I love is bastela and she also prepared it. And then, there were meat pies, served on silver trays, and for dessert, honey pastries and a small glass of tea. That ended at three in the morning, and the next day everyone went to work, without a hangover, yes, but with no hunger at breakfast time, after a night of intense thirst. Burning thirst like when you order industrial, family-sized pizza, with absurd ingredients.
If I remember this, which for me was a maximum privilege, it is because Ramadan is now beginning. The second in a pandemic. If next year we are fully open, which I suppose we will be, I would say it would be interesting for some of the good Moroccan restaurants in the city to offer Ramadan dinner to secular people. I would go, just as I go every year ---except last year, when everything just started--- to the Chinese New Year.