It's a Jungle In There

Cynics say that Asian restaurants in Barcelona need to spell out what kind of cuisine they're serving because, just by eating it, you wouldn't have the faintest idea.

That's harsh, and personally I find it charming, in some perverse way, that you can enter a "restaurante japonés" and learn that chicken wings, spring rolls and dumplings are new Japanese staple foods. That, at least, is what's making the rounds on the conveyor belt.

In Ly Leap's new restaurant on Muntaner, however, nothing's left to chance. For starters, it keeps "Indochine" in its name, just like its sister restaurant a few blocks away on Aribau, but it's the décor that really hammers home the point: In the original, you might think that you'd landed in a flower shop with a mighty fierce kitchen, but here at least it's unmistakenly a South East Asian flower shop.

With ponds, waterfalls and even a Vietnamese cabin set in the middle of it all (the place is huge - it used to house a laser paintball gaming facility), it's like Port Aventura on steroids. Don't be fooled though, the real attraction here, thankfully remains the food.

Indochine Ly Leap - opens to the public this week
Muntaner 82, Eixample Eix.

By AAl