Barcelona Vegetarian Restaurants

Thursday, March 02, 2006

Juicy Jones

After a long Barcelona weekend, there's nothing quite like cleansing your body and soul with a fully vegan 3-course meal accompanied by a deliciously fresh, multi-fruit juice packed with all the vitamins and minerals your body seems to be aching for.

That's why Juicy Jones is so much the ticket when you're in need of a pick-me-up. I usually opt for the soup and Thali, while my girlfriend goes for the salad and 'plato'. This time I changed my mind when I saw there was vegetarian lasaña on the menu. Now I've had many vegetarian lasañas in Barcelona, and most of them are pretty tasteless stacks of pasta sheets and vegetables, topped with a bland bechamel and even blander cheese. But I've sampled the Juicy Jones version on more than just the one occasion, so my tastebuds were beginning to show signs of expectancy. This was allayed somewhat, by the arrival of our starters.

Mine was a very warming, thick carrot soup which hardly touched the sides. The salad was ok, but they seemed to be short of ingredients, as was confirmed by the fact they had run out of oranges (probably the only place in the whole of the Iberian peninsula to have none that day). But our juices arrived too and mine, which included mango and strawberries (the strawberry season is upon us again), made me start to feel human once more.

Unfortunately, that's when the 'hiccups', which for some reason (complacency?), have started to become customary at this place, began.

My vegetarian lasaña (fully vegan, just like everything else at Juicy Jones) arrived and it was barely warm. We then had to wait until I had practically finished before the other main course arrived. This also seemed to us sub-standard, for Juicy Jones. It was all wrapped off by waiting for an eternity to receive our second juice and the postre, by which time, it - the lemon cake - had run out.

Now I regard Juicy Jones very highly - they repeatedly manage to serve up some of the tastiest veg*an dishes in Barcelona and have done so for many years. But I wish they would try and make more effort with the customers. I appreciate the time it takes to elaborate the hand-prepared food and juices, but often it seems that either they're under-staffed, or it's not just me who's suffering the effects of a long Barcelona weekend.