Tea Time: El Pollo Rico in Barcelona, Spain

I've given up on posting about Paris. For those of you who've been waiting to hear more about it, sorry. It's just been too long since June for me to remember a whole lot in detail, and I haven't even gotten around to our Ireland trip. If there's time later I may do a few quick reviews of sites/restaurants, but for now I'm going to focus on Barcelona while it's still fresh.
Which leads to me.....El Pollo Rico! Or, 'The Rich Chicken', if you prefer the translation. Basically, this place is a little greasy spoon hole-in-the-wall a few blocks off Las Ramblas. The sort of diner/restaurant I'd pass by without a second glance, had I not read a few reviews about their awesome paella.
Having tried a few upscale places and not really been overly impressed by their paella or tapas, we decided that we might as well give El Pollo Rico a shot. We were forewarned by some complaints online about El Pollo Rico not being the cleanest site around, but honestly it wasn't all that bad. Err...just don't look too closely at the pots and pans. In their defense, I did see them washing said pots and pans.
When we entered, we were hoping for seats upstairs but were informed that the dining room doesn't open until 1 pm. Not wanting to wait until then, we opted for seats at the counter, down at the far end of the narrow first floor, where we could watch our food being made.
We were promptly given menus in English; nobody there speaks more then a few words of English, but it was pretty easy to communicate with them via pointing and my basic recollection of Spanish.
El Pollo Rico has various specialties of the day, most of which are printed in English. It'd help if you could read some Spanish and order a few items off their hand-written blackboard too, though---we got some amazing fish croquettes that were only listed in Spanish.
Our first time there (yes, we went back not once but twice more!), we ordered the meat/seafood paella special: a jug of sangria and paella for 30 euros. There were various paella specials, all for 30 euros but the one with the sangria seemed to be the best deal. Our paella had lots of chicken chunks and a TON of seafood in it: I'm not sure how they could get any more seafood into their seafood-only paella (which doesn't include the jug of sangria). And El Pollo Rico's sangria is GOOOOOD! Or should I say, potent. Whichever the case, I did thankfully manage to stay on my barstool but only just.
Now, for those of you thinking that 30 euros is a lot to charge for paella and sangria, especially in a greasy somewhat dirty diner...you're probably right. It was indeed the most expensive item on their menu, and I'd say it's quite easy to eat there for 5 euros or less per person. One night we got carry-out (take away, whatever you want to call it) from El Pollo Rico, and their daily special of seafood soup, an order of lasagna--which was surprisingly good---, some sides, and one other main cost us less than 15 euros).
That being said...I'd dare say that their paella was the best we ate in Barcelona, and definitely the best value we had, too, in terms of seafood content and size. Not to mention that jug of sangria.
A few more notes about El Pollo Rico: everyone there was very friendly and kind. The chefs made a point to try to talk to us, and they gave us extra little treats too, like some fried potatoes for Keila and some green peppers on our second visit. Maybe they just liked Keila, I'm not sure. The bathrooms were clean, although the women's bathroom door didn't lock. Or else I just couldn't figure out how to work it (sangria!). There was soap in the dispenser at the main sink outside the bathrooms, but it wasn't working so you had to kind of dip your hand in the top to get any soap out.
While the place definitely looks somewhat aged and greasy, it had more of an authentic home-cooking feel to it than any other restaurant we visited, and we did see a cleaning woman at work, along with a dishwasher. So definitely not as bad as some reviews made it out to be.
Finally, if you happen to venture a block past El Pollo Rico (heading away from Las Ramblas), beware the prostitutes. Not kidding. Wasn't really an issue at 11:30 in the morning (several of them were talking to a patrolling police car), but their presence made me guess that I probably wouldn't want to be hanging around that area after dark. Just a heads up. It's probably still quite safe to visit El Pollo Rico in the evenings, seeing as it's quite close to Las Ramblas, but I wouldn't go wandering blindly around the area too late at night.
So, to summarize: El Pollo Rico in Barcelona: best paella we ate the entire trip! Don't go expecting 4 star gourmet, just really good no-frills meals.
PS. They do indeed serve roast chicken, as per their name. Not sure how good it is as we never go around to ordering it, but if it's anything like the rest of their food, it's probably well worth trying.
El Pollo Rico
Calle Sant Pau 31, 08001
Barcelona, Spain

The rather grease-encrusted range