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There is an alarming amount of eating and drinking taking place here. Every square metre of concrete has a bar and a restaurant attached to it and they are open all night to cater for the nocturnal fetishes of locals and tourists alike. For me, dining out used to be for special occasions, to be savoured and enjoyed as something different to cooking at home or attending dinner parties (not that I was invited to many, but it’s important to cite the cultural reference).

Here rather, I’ve been eating in restaurants and cafes every day – sometimes for breakfast, lunch and dinner. There are many possible reasons for this:

1. No one likes cooking (possible)
2. No one can cook (improbable)
3. They don’t have kitchens or their ovens are broken and, in typical Mediterranean style, the repairperson hasn’t turned up for the last six months to fix it
4. The food is offensively cheap here so you may as well save yourself a trip to Carrefour as well
5. It’s fun to eat out and you don’t have to clean up afterwards
6. There are many fantastic restaurants that serve undeniably delicious food

So far I’ve tasted the delights of African, Italian, Japanese, Brasilian and Catalan cuisine – all of which have had me in fits of gastronomic delight. At Peps Catalan restaurant, the entire family greets you at the door and introduces a table piled with home-cooked stews, soups, salads, pastries, fruit, cakes and bread, inviting you to sit down with a bottle of wine and eat as much as you can. The concoction of low ceilings, candles and plump, mature and very friendly staff makes you giddy – it’s a surreal experience; one that you must convince yourself is genuine and therefore something you must savour; because it’s the only thing that encourages to you raise your bloated frame for that last plate of rabbit and ham stew.

One of my favourite haunts is El Tropezon – a tapas bar in the barrio gótico not far from my apartment. It is beyond doubt one of the most filthy, greasy, obscene and absolutely fabulous eateries in Barcelona. Here you can get drunk out of your skull and eat well for eight euros. A rotund unshaven and sweaty man will storm towards you as soon as you sit and demand that you write your own order on a piece of paper. Several minutes later a steaming plate of patatas bravas, some pan amb tomàquet* and your booze of choice will be thrust in your face with a grunt. I ate here many times however after a while I began to suspect that El Tropzon was complicit in a plot to destroy my bowels so I ceased my patronage.

Grocery shopping too in a new country is a challenge, but here it’s more a challenge for the brain than the wallet. Deciphering new foods and looking for non-existent ones make for hours of shopping excitement. My first few weeks of “ducking into the supermarket on the way home from work” were hour-long lessons in Spanish and home economics. Fortunately I did bring along my dictionary and discovered that the cheap cans of angulas (baby eels) weren’t what I really wanted.

There is one inevitable consequence of long lunches and rich food: more jogging.

*Pan amb tomàquet is a local favourite in Catalunya. It’s usually just fresh crusty bread smothered in olive oil and tomato. Often there is garlic in the mix too. Too often my dinners consisted of a slice of tortilla, a couple of pieces of pan amb tomàquet and a beer