Madrid, May 4, 2010—
JUST ONE OF THE many attractions of this capital: the table. Like Rome, Madrid's a gratifying restaurant town: enough expensive, thoughtful places to satisfy any tourist, and plenty of inexpensive interesting little dives where the locals know how to eat well.
Today we walked around looking for lunch and pretty much at random stopped in at a little bar-café-eatplace next door to a corner building whose plaque informed us that it was the birthplace of Juan Gris, a favorite painter of ours. We looked at the menu posted by the door: only the Spanish language; only the typical local fare. We walked past the bar into the small back dining room and were given a table: at close to 2 pm, only one other table was occupied. And this is what we had:
Boquadillos, delicious sweet white anchovies in vinegar, with lots of tasty green olives.
Padrones, sweet, semi-piquant green chili peppers, scorched with olive oil and garlic and a tiny bit of chopped parsley
Patatas bravas, potatos cooked to just the right consistency and served with a quite piquant cayenne sauce
Tortilla, the spanish egg-and-potato omelet, with a small salad on the side
and the house threw in a small serving of paella, with only one shrimp thankfully, and little cubes of pork, and mushrooms, and rice.
A slow delicious lunch to punctuate a day of walking about to fend off jet lag. The bill said "Casa fundada en 1864": Juan Gris's father probably ate here.
Verdejo, Marin Verástegiu "Vendimia Seleccianada," 2009
La Farola , Calle Tetuán 20, Madrid; tel. 91 522 30 21
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