cmoniker's Profile
Craft Cocktails in Madrid, Barcelona, San Sebastian?
Avoid El Chicote at all cost. They served me a gimlet in a champagne flute with a cherry in the bottom and a wedge of orange in the other day. It tasted as bad as it looked, which as you can see in the picture attached was downright scary.
For my money, Del Diego prepares the best coctails but lacks atmosphere, so my friends and I tend towards Cock because it's a beautiful place and is just generally lovely to be in.
As MOREKASHA said though, Madrid's not famed for its coctails - you're way better served in London for that type of thing - and it's still relatively difficult to get anything beyond a mojito or caipirinha in most bars. That said, the best mojitos are to be found in Latina, where you can drink them on a terrace and watch the 'modernos' walk by to your heart's content.
Great Churros
Cacao Sampaca serves the best chocolate in Madrid, but the churros are outrageously bad. My advice is to order an Azteco (basically a dark chocolate bar melted into a little cup) and some of their fantastic soletillas (light and airy sponge fingers).
If you could go anywhere in Portugal, where would you go?
Absolutely! (Forgive the lag, it's been a while since I last logged on.)
Don Tonho (Cais da Ribeira 13) serves contemporary Portuguese cuisine overlooking the river with the Port wineries climbing the hill behind. The clams here are delicious, so be sure to ask if they have any in, and their toucinho do cué is the best dense almond cake dessert ever.
Taylor's (Rua do Choupelo 250) is the restaurant at Taylor's winery. The food's good, if not especially exciting, but it's worth eating at just to hit the port wines after dinner. (I have yet to find anywhere else that serves Taylor's 40 year tawny by the glass.)
Nelso dos Leitôes (upstairs in the market, Mercado do Bolhâo, loc.14-15) is hard to find, but well worth the hunt. Every day they roast a piglet here and sell sandwiches of the tender juicy meat for a mere 4€. Be sure to arrive before 2pm though. There's only one piglet a day and it flies. (If you do miss out, don't despair! The cafe just outside the market called Confeiteria do Bolhâo do a more than reasonable facsimile in much larger quantities.)
Abadia (Rua Ateneu Comercial do Porto 22-24) is on a road so small it's not found on maps, this place is worth finding. It has a massive bustling dining area and looks like a tourist trap when you walk in, but I had some of the best roast octopus tentacles I've ever eaten there. The portions are massive, so I'd recommend ordering half portions.
Then there are the port wine bars. My favourite is Vinologia on Rue Sâo Joáo 45 which is run by a French guy and his incredibly knowledgeable staff and stocks only wines from small producers,all of which they sell by the bottle if there's anything in particular you fancy taking home with you. It's tiny though, so it's worth stopping by early(ish).
The Solar do Vinho do Porto which is found at Rua de Entre Quintas 220, very close to the Palacio de Cristal, is also a lovely place to watch the sun set and relax with a port. Mostly ports from more commercial wineries, but they have an impressive selection of vintages by the glass available.
Hope this helps, even if it does come almost a year after you asked!
Viridiana, Arce, Fronton ?
This is way too late for bulldog's visit, but Lágrimas Negras at the Hotel de Américas (Avenida América 41, Tel: 91- 74 45 400) is worth checking out too. Their degustation menu is 85€ and they have a varied wine list with bottles to suit every budget. They also have a small informal dining area which serves wines by the glass and a nice assortment of tapas next to the bar. My food experience of May was their totally clear gazpacho, without a doubt.
Best Sushi/Japanese in Madrid
I was served perhaps the worst sushi I've ever encountered at Tsunami. Ugly, poorly plated and their miso soup quite clearly comes straight out of a packet. Vile.
The second worst place I've ever been in is Pink Sushiman. I ordered a tea whilst waiting to see what came round on the conveyor belt and stood up and walked when they brought me a chipped cup with a red tea bag in lieu of the green tea I'd ordered.
The best Japanese restaurants in Madrid in my opinion are:
- Naomi - Ávila 14 (Estrecho metro) Tel: 91 572 2304 - Tiny family run restaurant, mum and sister in the front, dad in the back and son slicing the finest sashimi from the freshest fish in Madrid. The sashimi is to die for, especially the tuna and scallop. They often have Otoro in too. You absolutely must have a reservation for this one as it's packed pretty much every night. If they can't offer you a table ask if there's room at the bar where you can watch the sushi chef at work. Naomi's also home to best miso soup I've ever tasted outside of Japan.
- Janatomo - Calle de la Reina 27 (Gran Via metro) Tel: 91 521 5566 - Madrid's oldest Japanese restaurant which became Chinese for a while in the 60s due to Madrileños reluctance to try Japonese cuisine. Other than Shiratori it's the only place I know in Madrid that has tepanyaki tables. Reasonably priced and decent enough house sake. The slightly warmed scallops are lovely and their black sesame flan is really really good.
Sake Dining Himawari - Tamayo y Baus 1 (Colon metro), Tel: 91 360 5013 - The food is good, but not amazing - save for their eel tempura and okra salad - but they have an extensive sake list which is definitely worth exploring.
I'm not a fan of Kabuki as I don't really feel there's much to gain by adding western touches to food as near to perfection as Japanese cuisine at its best can be. Another one to avoid no matter how much hip Madrileños try and convince you otherwise is Minabo which is basically Mexican-Japanese fusion. Picture perfectly clean flavours doused in chocolate and chili. Or better, don't.
Would love suggestions on a $50-75 wine to buy and hold
$75 is around 50€, I think. I'd suggest a Torre Muga, 2001 or 2004 if you're a fan of Rioja. The 2001 is, in my opinion a slightly better vintage, but the 2004 will undoubtedly develop really nicely if you hold for a few years.
There are also some wonderful wines coming out of Castilla y León at the moment. Really meaty and perfect for holding. Aside from the obvious Ribera del Duero wines, there are some very interesting wines coming out of Toro (same area of Spain, Valladolid). 2004's a great year and I'd heartily recommend Pintia, which is Vega Sicilia's Toro winery. It's currently available for around 35€ ($55), but stocks of that vintage are dwindling fast.
There are also great wines coming out of Bierzo too. The 2005 vintage Corullón is outstanding and will only get better over the next decade. You can probably pick it up for around 45€ ($70).
For something a bit different, you could venture over to Campo de Borja in Arragón and get a bottle of Alto Moncayo, 2005. It's 100% Garnacha and will hold well (if the gorgeous bottle doesn't tempt you into cracking it open sooner than you meant to). The 2005 appears to be disappearing at the speed of light, but if you're lucky you might be able to grab a bottle for around 35€.
If you decide to go with a Ribera del Duero, stick to 2004 and 2001 vintages as the years in between were okay but nothing special. To be honest though, the dollar's so weak right now that you'd need closer to $150 to get anything really great from either of those vintages. You can pick up a bottle of Vega Sicilia's low end stuff, Alión or a bottle of Pago de los Capellanes, El Nogal for around 40€ at the moment but it'll peak in around six years, so lacks any real aging potential.
For $75 you could also pick up a nice bottle of Porto if you enjoy sweet wines. I'd make a play for a Taylors or Kopke vintage, either from 1995 or 1997 for your money. Wonderful wines you can hold for decades in the right conditions.
What is the most wonderful food gift you've been given?
What a brilliant thread.
It's tough to chose the best food gift I've ever received as my friends and are scattered all over the world and almost always arrive bearing tasty things when we get together. I got some wonderful Oriol Balaguer chocolates for my birthday a few weeks back which were absolutely divine. (Almost as excitingly, I got a card with the address for his Madrid shop in the bag too.) I also got a few litres of deep green extra virgin olive oil from a friend's family's olivares. And the amazingly gooey aged balsamic aceto de Modena that my dear old mum got me for Christmas and which was gone far too quickly was pretty special too. Once way back in my student days, one of my flatmates' dad showed up with a sack of lentils from his land for us. We were wide eyed with gratitude.
In England it's considered a bit odd to give food as gifts, but in Spain everyone does it. If you go on holiday it's way better to bring back yummy stuff than some other weird memento for your friends. I always take some Ibérico de Bellota (the stuff that spends its life foraging on acorns and practically disolves on the tongue) when I go over to the UK, and more recently, chorizo from my local butcher since my best friend fell in love with patatas a la Riojana when he was here a few months ago.
I never eat _______ out because nobody makes it right but me.
Risotto. I always want to but it's invariably disappointing. My wife loves it and orders it every now and again then stares at her plate and sighs that it's not as good as mine.
I don't do anything special to mine - I don't think - but I think getting the timing between switching off the heat, adding the last ladle of stock and stirring in the parmesan prior to covering before serving might be the key. Leave it two minutes too long and it goes goey rather than creamy. Skip this step - as I imagine many professional kitchens do - and it ends up as a splodge on a plate (and in the worst cases a crunchy rice splodge). It's not rocket science. In fact it's the precise time it takes me to go to the cupboard to get the plates, get a couple of pairs of hands washed and pour a couple of glasses of wine.
Viridiana, Arce, Fronton ?
and... Embajadores?
I don't think I have actually (unless it was in those hazy days of learning my way around Madrid without registering a thing). I love navajas and berberechos, however, so most certainly will pop in one of these days. Thanks for the tip.
Best place to try morcilla in Madrid or Barcelona
Morcilla de Burgos! Right. Spot the retired vegan ;p
If you could go anywhere in Portugal, where would you go?
Porto, without a doubt. Aside from being a lovely little city, you check out the wineries and eat very well for virtually no cash.
Best place to try morcilla in Madrid or Barcelona
Asturianos at Vallehermoso 94 in Madrid is one of he few places I eat morcilla. They have various types. My favourite is the one with rice.
Dress @ Zaranda (Madrid)
It's perfectly appropriate, but I'd not bother with Zaranda if I were you.
I was there a couple of weeks ago, and while the food is very pretty, the overall experience was certainly not what I'd expect from a one star restaurant.
Viridiana, Arce, Fronton ?
Arce is a good choice. Iñaki, the chef only works with seasonal produce and usually has a couple of different tasting menus to chose from (Mushroom menu in season, 'Market' menu depending on what's available on the day, Winter menu etc.) If you're feeling more adventurous, simply ask him to put something special together for you and enjoy the ride.
For tapas you should hit La Latina neighbourhood and/or calle Ponzano in Chamberi and just bar hop. Avoid Plaza Santa Ana at all costs as pretty much all the food available there is crap and it's full of tourists (2+2 as ever).
I ate at Sacha last Saturday and while the place itself is charming, was largely unimpressed with the food and the fact that there's no non-smoking area.
There's a lovely little restaurant called Gala (Espronceda 14) which is worth checking out. Their current tasting menu with (perfectly) matched wines is well worth the 65€ price tag. Here's their Web site: http://www.restaurantegala.com/ so you can have a look.
You should definitely give time to La Manduca de Azagra (Zagasta 14 - between Alonso Martinez and Bilbao metros). They bring all of their vegetables from their own vegetable plot (manduca) in Azagra, Navarra daily. The result is quite simply the best vegetables in Madrid - though the meat and fish are great too. Make sure you try their anchoas de Santoña and fried artichoke starters. They have a small but perfectly chosen wine list with a mark up so small that I've frequently found bottles of stuff they have more expensive in shops.
As far as Sunday goes, if you're willing to go a little less modern - okay, totally traditional - you should check out an Asturian place called, Asturianos (Vallehermoso 94). It looks like a total dive, but the food is really really good and it's technically an 'enoteca' so you'll have loads of wines to choose from. Try their rice black pudding - less intense than the pure blood one - and one of their fabadas.
Where's the BEEF?
You need to ask for a solomillo de vacuno. That's a big fat piece of beef.
I live in Madrid and have never noticed any shortage of beef. Then again, I used to be vegetarian till I moved to Spain and discovered jamón...
Madrid or Barcelona
Other than a few of his Fast Good burger places, he's executive chef of the Terraza del Casino (Alcalá 15), the head chef of which trained at El Bulli. Sergi Arola, another of his Bulli crew appears to be building a little empire in Madrid too, with his Michelin starred La Broche (Miguel Angel 29) a chain of upmarket sandwich places and his Arola at the Reina Sofia museum. His new place at Zurbano 31 is pretty missable as it's both overpriced and just somehow doesn't have its wits about it yet. His D'E sandwich place on Juan Bravo - located right opposite Madrid's flagship Fast Good - also has Paco Torreblanca pastries, and so is worth visiting for that reason alone. Though in no way affiliated to Adria, Juan Pablo Felipe is doing wonderful things at El Chaflán (Av. Pío XII 34) which you might like to check out.
As for where I stand on the Madrid - Barcelona debate, for tapas and sheer variety it's Madrid. You can find practically anything you want in season in Madrid and as someone else mentioned, the best produce invariably tends to end up in Madrid - often at slightly scary costs, but well worth it - and there are lots of up and coming small restaurants popping up all over the place as well as tabernas with amazing pinchos and increasingly varied and exciting wine lists - there's life beyond Rioja and Ribera del Duero, who'd have known.
That said, I've always eaten very well in Barcelona, it's just a very different way of dining. The city's eateries are spread out so it's much more difficult to grab a drink and a nibble in one place then move on somewhere else. El Barcelones is all about sitting down to dinner rather than standing around over tapas and bar hopping like their castilian cousins. La Boqueria is, however, in my opinion the best market in Europe so if you're staying in an apartment and are a keen cook Barcelona might just be your place. The pastries are also excellent in that neck of the woods. Madrid never did quite get the hang of how to make a good croissant.
If you have a little time to spend and access to a car, I suggest you give both cities the heave ho and take yourself on a gastronomic tour of Catalonia or the Basque country. No one does pinxos like the Basques and the godfather of Spain's new wave cuisine, Arzak, is still in charge of the kitchen at his place in San Sebastian (home of more Michelin stars per capita than anywhere else in the world).
Long story short, you have to try very hard to eat badly in Spain so you'll have a gastronomic blast wherever you go.
