My next post was supposed to be about steak. And lots of it. You see, I am supposed to be in Buenos Aires, but the volcano in Chile has disrupted my travel plans and I am in Madrid. It turns out this is not such a bad place to be stuck and, hey, it means I can continue with the tapas theme.
Thanks to couch surfing, I have had the fortune of being taken to dinner by some Madrileños. One girl in particular, Maria, has been extremely helpful. She saw my profile on couch surfing and thought that we would probably have a lot in common; we did. She too loves to eat and to talk about food, in fact she kept apologising for talking about nothing else.
“¡Por favor, Maria, es mi sujeto favorito tambien!” ("Please Maria, it is my favourite subject too!")
She took me to a couple of places in the Malasaña area (a trendy, bohemian spot). My favourite of the two was Casa Julio:
Everything was homemade and really fresh. The croquetas were some of the best I've tasted - nice and soft (not too floury) and with some lovely flavour combinations: mushrooms and leeks, spinach and gorgonzola, and morcilla.
Croquetas: espinacas y gorgonzola, setas y puerro, y morcilla
Maria is from Cádiz and so I was very lucky that she let me order the tortillitas de camarones which originate there. We both knew they wouldn't be as good as the real thing and sure enough they weren't; in Cádiz they are made with whole baby prawns (yes heads, tails, skins and all) which gives them a magnificent crunch and unique flavor that is not really replicable. These ones were made with the flesh of adult prawns and they tasted good – well seasoned and very crisp – but they were not really comparable.
Tortillitas de camarones
I got a taste for papas con mojo picón when I lived in Granada - potatoes served with a spicy sauce with lots of garlic and cumin - so we ordered those too.
Papas con mojo picón
I have since returned to Casa Julio and this time I tried the albondigas con patatas (meatballs with potatoes) which from what I can remember (I had drunk a lot of wine) were delicious.
Albondigas con patatas
Later Maria took me to another bar called Bodega de la Ardosa:
Chatka (Crab and crabstick with mayonnaise on toast)
Salmorejo
At the risk of offending numerous Cordobesas, the salmorejo (a cold soup made from tomato, olive oil and stale bread) was the best I have ever tried, and I have eaten many a salmorejo in Andalucia, several in Córdoba.
If all this wasn't enough, at the end Maria told me she had written a guide to all her favourite places to eat in Madrid sorted by area and with tips about which dishes to order in each ¡Genial! That night I went to La Latina to follow up on some of Maria´s suggestions.
Her guide said that Cava Baja was full of great places for small tapas which was just what I wanted since I was alone and the raciones are too big for one person. I found a place called Taberna Txakolina where they do pinchos (which I have discovered does not just mean skewered meat, but rather anything small that one person can eat, usually held together with a skewer or toothpick).
I didn't try the mini hamburguesas (mini hamburgers), but I took a photo anyway cause I liked the concept even if I didn't think they looked particularly appetising:
Mini hamburguesas (Mini hamburgers)
Bacalao con patata y piquillos (Salt cod with potato and roast peppers)
Brocheta de pollo y salsa mojo picón (chicken brochette with mojo picón sauce)
The chistola was the highlight; juicy morsels of chorizo wrapped in crispy potato and topped with a fried quail's egg:
Chistola
After this I found a place called Casa Lucas which had lots of stickers in the window from various guides; usually a safe bet. It was wonderful, I only wish the portions hadn't been so large as I could only get through one tapas dish. There were many more I would have liked to try.
Cariñena - grilled pork with confit onion on toastOn another evening, some other people I met through couch surfing also invited me out for dinner. Their friend worked in a restaurant called La Casa del Abuelo which specialised in prawns.
There were several ways that you could have them done, but the specialty was gambas al ajillo (garlic prawns).
El abuelo
Gambas al ajilloYes, that is olive oil you can see so, no, this is not a dish for those watching their waistlines. It is also not recommended before a night out as the amount of garlic is beyond anything you could imagine. I felt sorry for the one person in the group who didn't try any; we must have all smelt so bad afterwards! But, wow, they were good - definitely worth el mal aliento (the bad breath).
Later we went to Las Bravas, the restaurant which claims to have invented brava sauce, i.e. of the famous patatas bravas.
I am not sure whether I believe this, but my host was fairly convinced and kept pointing out on the menu that it says they have patented it. If that is the case, they are not doing a very good job of keeping others from using the name. Anyway, it was very tasty although they did get a little bit carried away with the sauce…
Patatas bravas (potatoes with brava sauce)
Tortilla español con brava (Spanish omelette with brava sauce)
Pincho de cerdo (pork skewer)On Saturday I met another person through couch surfing who had also contacted me because he saw that I was interested in food. Paco is a restaurant consultant so he knew a lot about where was best to eat as well and took me to El Mercado de San Miguel. It was fantastic!
Basically it is a gourmet market with lots of stalls selling all kinds of food, both to eat there and to take away. The best part is that you can have a proper glass of wine at the same time. You just buy a glass of what you fancy from one of the bars and wander around the markets working out what you want to eat and when you have got all your bits and pieces you find a table in the centre or around the perimeter to eat and drink.
Croquetas: chiperones en su tinta, gambas y setas, queso idiazábal (croquettes: squid in their ink, prawns and mushrooms, idiazábal cheese)
Selección del quesos (Selection of cheeses)
Jamón iberico (Iberico ham)
I could have eaten a lot more, but my companion was teasing me:
"¿Todavia tienes hambre? ¿Cómo sea posible? ¿Dónde lo pones?" ("Are you still hungry? How is this possible? Where do you put it?")
I replied that I wasn't really hungry, but I could eat more because it was all so delicious. Nonetheless, we left it at that because he could not fathom the idea of another dish ... probably for the best.
We did keep drinking wine though; I had such a bad hangover yesterday that I stayed in bed all day. I only left my hostel once for breakfast so I didn't get to try anything worth sharing.
I am off now to the area called Retiro where Maria has told me I will find lots more delicious things to eat. All being well, the next time I post something I will be in Argentina. I am going to be travelling in South America for three months, well two months and three weeks assuming the Chilean earthquake doesn't spew anymore ash. I will definitely keep up the blog while I am there, but my posts may be a bit less frequent than usual. I will try to get lots of nice photos of the things I am eating and the places I am eating them and, where possible, I will try to get some traditional recipes from the locals.
Hasta entonces… (Until then…)