mad for Madrid

plaza mayor. parque del buen retiro. plaza de toros de las ventas. all beautiful in their own right, but this to me is not the real attraction in madrid.

home to tapas. paella. jamon. chorizo. churros. calamares. to name a few. and the sangria. now we're talking.

 food heaven.

i usually start my day at Museo del Jamon at sol. bustling with locals. grabbed a ham sandwich, and orange juice. or you can do it the spanish way and have cafe con leche (espresso coffee with milk). stood by the counter and just listened to the beautiful noise of plates and spanish conversations around me. words ill never understand but is music to my ears.

another option to start your spanish day is the tortilla or spanish omelette. it's a thick egg omelette made with potatoes, for a more hearty meal.

and then there's the churros, paired with a spanish hot chocolate. usually for breakfast, but ill have it any time of the day.

you can have it almost anywhere you pop in for breakfast, but if you want to get it right, and you should always get it right when it comes to food, go to Chocolateria de San Gines at Paradizo San Gines. been making the best churros in town since 1894. 

you can make room for all these since the spanish usually have breakfast til 1 in the afternoon!

if i were to pick favorites (and it's hard), and choose just one place i love in madrid, it would be Mercado de San Miguel. just outside the walls of Plaza Mayor, this food market has been there since the early 19th century, but now restored and looks even more amazing.

the only thing more amazing other than it's architecture is the food inside! from tapas, to oysters, to ham, to calamares, to fresh fruit juices, to sangrias. i can have breakfast, lunch and dinner at this place, and a few nibbles in between. happiness.

you can head to a tapas bar or watch a flamenco show, which was the plan but a friend and i got a little too carried away with our sangrias and figured this was a more fun way to experience madrid. indeed, fun. 

something i ticked off my foodie-bucket list is dining at the oldest restaurant in the world. and yes, it's in madrid. founded at 1725 is the Restaurante Botin, at google it dot com.

a restaurant where Francisco Goya worked as a waiter, and Ernest Hemingway loved that he mentioned it in one of his books. that to me is history enough. i need to eat here. 

most forums would advise you to book ahead, since it has become a tourist attraction, so may be wise for you to do so. as much as i shy away from tourist-y places, especially when it involves food, this one im willing to sit through.

i was lucky that i didn't need a booking, probably because they saw me wandering the outside of their restaurant hours before they'd open. the staff were too kind to accomodate me. 

the place was an attraction on it's own. the chandeliers, the tiled walls, the paintings on it, the wide windows. it just screamed old world. the whole time i was sitting there i wondered, where is Ernest Hemingway's table? 

i was lucky to be the first customer and had an intimate moment with Botin, seconds after, this place was packed.

don't miss their famous chochinillo asado (roasted suckling pig) and their sopa de ajo (eggs, poached in chicken broth and mainly with garlic flavor). 

definitely an experience of a lifetime! any serious foodie should come and visit.

to summarize my spanish love affair, it tasted oh so good, felt so wrong, but so right. like any love affair. 

buen apetito todo el mundo! trying hard to speak spanish, like i try hard to blog.

cheers!