Hello again, dear travelers!
Hope you are doing excellent and you feel ready to try some Spanish food in Madrid!
As we left you some nice tips on our first welcoming post, we will continue talking about Spanish gastronomy and what kind of dishes you should try when you get to Madrid.
We have a culture of bars and terraces so an important part of experiencing Madrid will be food and drinks!
As we are in a center region of Spain, we don’t talk so much about seafood and we talk more about meat, especially pork and lamb.
Let’s go for it!
Check out our chef 👨🍳 explanations below:
😍 “ Bocadillo de calamares” = “Squid sándwich” , two big pieces of bread with fried squid inside and we recommend you to ask for some lime and mayonnaise or maybe some“ brava sauce” (Spicy) in order to make it even better. The best one is in Plaza Mayor and on our tour we will pass by!
Madrid has so many beautiful places, but we definitely don’t have sea, so how the squid sandwich became so popular?
We’ll tell you that also!
😋 ” Cocido madrileño ” = a mix of vegetables and different parts of the pork boiled together and the final result is a soup and a second dish. Quite healthy plate and very popular for centuries, especially among people with not so many resources and during hard times in Madrid. You should consider to share one dish, it’s a quite an important meal.
Don’ t worry, we’ll recommend you the best places for “cocido” in town!
🤭” Callos a la madrileña ” = Beef trips. The ingredients are cooked in a meat broth with paprika, tomato sauce and garlic. Doesn’t seem so tempting at first side, but is quite delicious. You should melt the bread with the sauce! As you can see, we don’t waste any parts of the meat.
🥩 “ Cochinillo/Cordero asado” = suckling pig/lamb. Even these dishes are more typical for the regions around, Segovia and Toledo, we have some good spots in Madrid to try them.
One of them is just the oldest restaurant in the world! 😱
If you want to try them in the original environment you should check our trips to Toledo and Segovia 🚌
💥” Tapas ” = small portions of food. Probably the most popular word in Spanish related with gastronomy. You can find tapas everywhere in Spain, but not all the places respects the tradition: you pay one alcoholic drink and you get some free tapas.
At the beginning, a “tapa” was a small piece of jam or cheese, but nowadays we have an amazing gastronomy of tapas, with a lot of variety and ingredients.
On our Free Walking Tour we will give you tips about the best places where you should try some tapas and we will explain you how this idea started!
🤤 “Croquetas de jamón y queso” = croquettes with jam and cheese, but we know places where they have more than 10 types of “croquetas”, with mushrooms, code, chicken and whatever you want to put in. Together with Spanish Tortilla is one of the easiest plates to cook and when you don’t have almost nothing in your fridge you can prepare quickly some “ croquetas”.
🥔 “ Tortilla de patatas” = Spanish tortilla.
Cheap dish and delicious, with many types of cheese, pepper, onion, jam, mushrooms and the list may continue!
It’s also common to have some small slice of tortilla during breakfast time inside of a “bocadillo”
🥔 “ Patatas bravas” or “patatas Ali olí “ = when you get to Madrid you should definitely know about these two sauces, since we love to eat potatoes with them: “ brava” and “Ali olí”, with olive oil, sweet and spicy pepper and tomate, the first one, and vinagre, olive oil, eggs and garlic, the second one.
You will always notice that the olive oil is present in most of the Spanish food in Madrid.
🐰 “ Paella” = rice, vegetables and rabbit meat, olive oil and condiments.
That is the original paella, born in Valencia region. But nowadays you can find many types of paella, the most popular ones with seafood and chicken. Careful in Madrid with the frozen and bad paellas you can find all over around, check with us the best places!
☕️ “ Chocolate with churros” = our final dish comes with the most popular breakfast in Madrid.
Especially on Sunday mornings families love to go to a “chocolatería”, order some hot cup of chocolate and break the crust of the chocolate with “ churros” inside, like a large, thin and crunchy donut.
There is one “chocolatería”in Madrid 24 hours open and always full of people, so don’t live Spain without trying in! 😱
As a companion for the most dishes you can always ask for some Rioja or Ribera wines and also cider, Spanish beers , “madroño” liquor, vermut or some schnapps.
So you already know that on our next post we will talk about drinks in Spain! 🍷
See you on our next post!
