La Plata’s review in Budget Travel, a newyorker magazine: «There are only four kinds of tapas at this shoe-box-size bar on the corner of a dark, narrow street, and Pepe, the squat, middle-age waiter behind the counter, doesn’t really want to talk you through the choices. Still, Pepe’s surliness isn’t scaring anyone away. On most summer evenings, you can count on people spilling out of the open doorway. Better to come in the afternoon, when only a few old-timers will be there, arguing over soccer or politics, exactly as they’ve been doing since La Plata first opened 65 years ago. If you’re lucky, you’ll catch them drinking wine or beer from a porrón, a traditional glass pitcher shaped like an oil can. It’s passed around and each person aims a stream of liquid into his mouth (without the glass touching his lips). Nostalgia rules here: An old-fashioned wooden icebox keeps beer bottles cold, wine is drawn out of dusty-looking barrels, and smoke-stained black-and-white photographs dot the walls. La Plata’s owner, Anna, whose parents opened the restaurant, says the menu has hardly changed over the years. Its quartet of simple dishes—small fried fish, tomato-and-onion salad, cured anchovies, and pork sausage—are so familiar to the bar’s patrons by now that you won’t find a single printed menu in sight. Barcelona. Carrer de la Mercè, 28, 011-34/93-315-1009, open Mon.-Sat. 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. to 11 p.m. Closed Sundays».