Eighteen Hours in Madrid

Madrid!

A good rule for traveling, and life in general, is take advantage of the time you have, no matter how short it may be. I try to follow that, so when I had an 18-hour layover in Madrid a few weeks ago, I hopped on the metro and headed for the center city to eat some Spanish food!

I have to admit, there are more ideal places to eat as a non-drinking vegetarian than Spain, land of beer and pork – rather, cañas y jamón (and salchichón, and morcilla, and chorizo, and morcón...). 

But no matter your alimentary gravitation, you’ll have no trouble finding plenty of other delicious things to eat, most notably juicy summer fruit, ice cream, excellent olives, churros y chocolate, tortilla española, fiesty sheep’s milk cheese, bocadillos de calamares, sweet and chewy almond turrón, fresh seafood, and a multitude of tapas. Or, you know, salted cod.

For some reason, I'm not quite sure exactly why, salted cod is a very popular traditional dish in Portugal and Spain. It was sold in this fishy-smelling though rather charming little shop.

I passed that one up and headed straight to Mercado San Miguel, not far from Plaza Sol. This place will be forever be emblazoned in my memory from the first time I was in Madrid. I’d flown in that day from Belgium, and, hungry and tired, had stumbled across the glass-walled market. I wandered through it, my eyes wide. For a (I’ll admit it) major foodie, it was heaven on earth. 

That day we sampled melt-in-your-mouth jamón iberica de bellota, cured ham from a heritage breed of pig fed only on acorns. 

Then sheep’s milk cheese on bread with blackberry jam, then a giant scoop of burrata with pesto and cherry tomatoes. 

If you’ve never heard of burrata, let me tell you what it is so as not to lose one more precious moment missing out on this most marvelous of dairy products: take fresh mozzarella and at some point in the mixing process, add a bunch of cream, resulting in a creamy, rich, soft, pure-white product of cheese wizardry. So that’s where I went first.

This time I chose a sweet one , blackberry jam and almonds, finished with a drizzle of olive oil. 

Dreamy.

Next, olive time!

One the way, I passed these. I believe they are goose neck barnacles. You can eat them. I did not.

I squeezed through the crowd to the olive skewer bar. I nixed everything involving ham and/or anchovies and settled on one with black olives, cheese, and sun dried tomato. It was faaaabulous! I’m mostly indifferent to black olives, which in the US tend to be either totally bland or bitter and unpleasant, but these were rich and full of complex flavor, pairing well with the cheese and savory tomato.

Finally, a spinach croquette. I don’t know what’s in them exactly, but it appears to be some combination of a small quantity of pureed spinach and a lot of melty, soft, creamy deliciousness, deep fried until golden and crunchy on the outside. 

 In Salamanca last summer I tried croquetas de chocolate too – imagine deep fried Nutella. Yep. 

Then I had to get out of there before I got full, BECAUSE IT WAS CHURRO TIME!! First I went to see the Chocolateria San Gines, a century-old Madrid landmark.

I say see, though, because while their churros are perfect, I was not a fan of their hot chocolate when I was there last summer – I found it one-dimensional and slightly bitter. I found another place advertising thick milk chocolate and decided to try that. 

I did sacrifice something in churro quality – they were warm but not piping hot – but that was made up for by the chocolate, thick, rich, and sweet. 

 Crunchy warm churros + thick hot chocolate = culinary bliss.
 
Full, tired, and happy, I headed back to sleep for a few hours before catching a plane home.

Hasta la proxima, Madrid.