House hunting in Madrid

Hello! Is anybody still in Madrid this far into summer? I am, though you wouldn’t know it from my lack of posting (after summer resolution: to post more). All is very well indeed with me - busy, but in a good way :-) Have just come back from a week of work meetings in Coruña, where we were stuffed with empanada (a type of Galician savoury pasty), yummy scallops, octopus and plenty of chilled Albariño to wash it all down with. All of this made a somewhat tense week of meetings much more bearable! And was such a relief to get away from the heat of Madrid in summer.

And now that the worst of the working year is over for both David and I, we’re busy house hunting. Tired of our cute but short term place in the sticks of ‘Glamabanchel’, we are looking for somewhere more central, and what we’re finding is frankly horrible. So here’s my tongue in cheek guide to would-be Madrileño sellers on what NOT to do if you really want to sell that house online.

• Please tidy up. Just a little bit. Or at least, do not take a photo of the mess and upload it on Idealista.

• Do not call something a ‘loft’ (in the New York sense) when what you want to say is a freezing-in-winter-boiling-in-summer, attic-cum-laundry-room with a corrugated tin roof and a ceiling so low you can’t even stand up in it.

• A flat with a built-in adult bunk-bed in the living room is not a ‘duplex’ – and you can’t consider the square metre-age of said bunk-bed an addition to that of the apartment. E.g. 65m flat+4m of bunk beddage=69m. NO!

• If you are referring to your flat as ‘designer’ it probably isn’t, and no you can’t add a 10k premium to your pad just because you have an imitation Eames chair (that you are taking with you in any case). Meeeeowww.

• Do not try to throw in your granny’s brown 3x3m formica mueble as part of the deal – we don’t want it. Take it to the junk yard, or leave it on the street the assigned day of the month for the local council to pick it up.

• Do take wide-angle photos of the rooms and NOT close-ups of clusters of your porcelain miniatures or your bathroom shelf toiletries. The idea is to sell your house and not tell us what good taste in pottery you have!

In Madrid, with none of those annoying but enjoyable programmes like House Doctor, people seemed not to have cottoned on to all the usual tricks of making your home more saleable – painting in neutral colours, taking photos during the day, de-cluttering, freshly brewed coffee (ok, you can’t really show that in a photo). On the other hand, I am a sucker for taking on awful spaces and trying to make them habitable – and when yesterday we finally found a beautifully designed centrally located home at almost the right price, I turned up my nose, saying ‘but I want to make it pretty, I don’t want to buy it pretty’. There’s no pleasing some people.

Another weekend away

This weekend to celebrate, among other things, our anniversary and my new (now old) job I prepared a surprise trip – I wanted somewhere no more than 2 hours from Madrid (for practical reasons) and something very rural but with a bit of style. A few hours of googling and somewhat disappointed with the amount of casas rurales with dusty vases of dried flowers and flammable bedspreads I stumbled upon Hotel Nabia in the Sierra de Gredos at the foot of Almanzor mountain and with views over the picturesque Valle del Tietar. The hotel is gorgeous -  see photo of room 14 below where we stayed - breakfast is also yummy serving all kinds of local goodies. In the vicinity you can go to nearby village Candeleda which is quite pretty (see bottom photo) and eat roast lamb/goat and there are plenty of stunning walking routes if your inclined to hiking. But to be honest, it's worth the journey (2.20 hours from Madrid) just to wake up to such gorgeous views of the valley.

A knight in Siguenza

Last weekend, and in celebration of David's tenureship, we spent the night in the Parador at Siguenza. The hotel is a medieval castle from the 12th century and a makes a really atmospheric getaway for a wintry weekend; suits of armour and stone fireplaces aplenty. One of the best places to eat in the town also happens to be the parador where we had roast suckling pig (cochinillo) and migas which are, er...breadcrumbs...though so much tastier than they sound - chunky breadcrumbs fried with a fatty paprika rich sausage known as chistorra and served in this case with a variety of acompaniments: fried egg, baby green peppers, bacon, gammon, cheese, preserved red peppers and grapes. The idea is that you roughly chop the runny egg and greasy chistorra into the crumbs then eat with the rest of the garnishes. Sounds yucky but tastes yummy. Prior to this I had only ever stayed at Paradores when travelling with work - basically they are state owned hotels, almost always in historic buildings and usually 4 star. Also it worked out to be great value as we managed to get an escapada joven (youth getaway) which is about 40euros less than the normal pruice - funny how in Spain joven is up to 35 -  funny in a good way of course, but surprising compared to the UK where your 'young persons rail card' is no longer valid at the 'ancient' age of 26... and I only have a couple more years of escapadas joven to go so I'd better get my skates on ;-)

Here are some photos of the weekend plus an example of what migas look like.

Siguenza Parador



This second photo is taken in a castle in Jadraque that is closed to the public but seeing as some local youths had already broken down the fencing we sneaked in :-)



Migas with accompaniments - source

Views of the deserted castle

 







Winter in Madrid and a recipe to share

This winter in Madrid is proving to be particularly enjoyable; not too cold this time round, plenty of home-cooking and good wine, browsing art galleries, day trips (Aranjuez in the photo) and staying in and watching Caprica (and no, I don’t normally like SciFi but this is one of those series that doesn’t include characters that wear spandex jumpsuits or have bony knobbled foreheads or pointy ears, so I’m actually not averse to it!). I just wanted to share a little side dish that I cooked the other day as it was perhaps the first time that I cooked fennel and it turned out just right. Normally I cut it into lengths then braise it with white wine and butter, and while it’s tasty it’s not ‘come back for seconds’ tasty… but the other day D did roast lamb and I decided that I’d do a side to accompany – a quick Google and voilá (Sp?) – fennel with pine nuts and raisins (a mix of various recipes found online). I’m sorry that as usual I don’t have a photo but promise this is delicious and easy peasy!

Ingredients (for 2-3 people as a side)

1 bulb of fennel

Tablespoon of butter

Slug of olive oil

Small handful of raisins/sultanas

Small handful of pine nuts

Salt and pepper to taste

Chop the fennel into more or less 1.5 cm cubes, meanwhile heat up the butter and oil in a pan. Add the fennel and cook for around 5 minutes on a medium heat, add the pine nuts and raisins, cook until the fennel is done – about 10 more minutes in my case. You might want to partially cover the pan if you find the pine nuts and fennel are getting too dark. Add salt and pepper to taste. Goes beautifully with lamb. Enjoy!

Hidden Madrid - Calling all Goya fans

Last weekend I was introduced to the little-known (at least little-known by me) chapel where Goya is buried in Madrid; Ermita de San Antonio de la Florida, near Metro Moncloa. Not only is the great maestro buried there, but he is responsible for the wonderfully vibrant and dynamic frescoes adorning the ceiling. Entry is free and it's pretty much free of crowds.

photo source

Been away

I have only just realised that I haven't posted in over a week - very unlike me. The reason is I've been pretty much mega-busy, though in the good sense of the word - interesting stuff has been happening in my life which I can't really talk about just yet ;-) All I can say is I've been taken to some very nice places around Madrid which I'll be updating you on asap!

Tea at the Santo Maura

A friend and I stopped by at the gorgeous Hotel Santo Mauro today for a nice cup of Earl Gray. I'd heard of this swish former palace on C/Zurbano before but had never seen it in person. Gorgeous!

I'm talking to you 3b

This mat made me laugh, it really could have been made for me. And as for 3b, there is no 3b, but these sentiments could apply to pretty much the entire population of my Madrid neighbourhood, Lavapies...
From the Onion Store

Fellini in Madrid

If you’re in the city and fancy a bit of film culture then check out the free Fellini exhibition at Madrid’s CaixaForum I popped in by chance yesterday and it’s definitely worth stopping by; includes some great photography, stills, sketches and film extracts – with a special focus on the saucy fountain scene with Anita Eckberg in La Dolce Vita and some of the curious fetishes of this Italian director. On till December 26th.

Yummy Frozen Goodness

I've never tried frozen yoghurt before. Does that sound strange to readers from the States where I'm guessing it's really well-known? Well, I finally got to try it the other day in Madrid's newly inagurated frozen yoghurt bar - Ö! My Good - in Alonso Martínez. I'm not usually a fan of yoghurt, which I realise is almost unheard of, but I was so hot and bothered in the 37º sun that I thought I'd give it a try as I was in the neighbourhood. And O! my was it good! The decor was all super minimalist and cool and the yoghurt was great - more refreshing than ice-cream with a sort of creamy but tangy taste. The toppings on offer are a mixture of mouthwatering and healthy: everything from white chocolate buttons to goji berries and pineapple - personally I went for blackberries, chocolate brownie bits and caremalised soya seeds - topped off with a little complementary grated lime rind. Sounds odd but it worked. Final verdict? This sin't a substitute for ice-cream, but it is a yummy alternative. Best of all it's virtually fat and therefore guilt-free :-)

Calle Sagasta 32, Metro Alonso Martínez

A birthday breakfast in Madrid

My heavy-handed approach to butter and mustard.

Pain au chocolat

Belgian bread at Le Pain Quotidien

This photo is from absolutmadrid.com

My friends and I are huge fans of breakfast. Whether it's a greasy British fry up, a dense slab of campesino bread rubbed with tomato and drizzled with olive oil, or something that slides into brunch like eggs benedict followed by carrot cake. When I'm on my own, I'm guilty of missing breakfast, but back in my 'cooking days' I would occasionally have people round for creamy scrambled eggs or on one momentous occasion (can't remember what that was) a brunch of home-made sweetcorn blinis, smoked salmon and that creamy, gherkiny dip, liptauer. I do sometimes wonder what happened to that girl that loved cooking, and wish she would come back and make me stuff. Bring out the violins :p

Today was another memorable morning meal. We had a little celebratory birthday breakfast for my dear friend Catherine, who is queen of breakfast and all things wholesome and orderly :-)

At the birthday girl's request the 4 of us made it to Belgian bakery-come-eatery Le Pain Quotidien on Gran Via for 11am. We started off with big bowls of coffee and pain au chocolat - which were good though our francophile friend Kate said the pastries weren't quite up to Parisian standards. Could anything really ever be up to Parisian standards? Following this were boiled free-range eggs with 'soldiers' of gorgeous organic bread, excellent home-made hummus with just the right balance of earthy cumin, cloying olive oil and sharp lemon, and thickly sliced ham with mustard, tapenade and more of that great bread - all washed down with freshly-made lemonade, apple and ginger juice, and OJ. I really had to restrain myself not to order the whole menu here, one of their specialities seem to be tartines - toasted slices of organic bread topped with goodies like curried free range chicken with mango, harrisa and red fruits chutney, or the equally delicious-sounding marinated tuna with hummus and chives.

Our breakfasts are usually followed by a session of window shopping on C/Fuencarral (a digestive aid I say) and more often than not a stop at another cafe for refreshments. In this case, our favourite little vintage bar, Lolina, where we enjoyed raspberry and strawberry juice and a few good laughs (photos below).

P.s. have a great weekend everyone!

Felicidades to the lovely birthday girl :-)

Wine tasting in Madrid

I've been meaning to try out wine-tasting for pretty much the past 6 years - but there's always been some 'valid' excuse not to (time, money, going teetotal for abit, no-one else wants to go etc). Don't get me wrong, a lot of wine has been tasted during my years in Madrid, but little attention has been paid to colour, to bouquets and to woody undertones...lol.. Well, the other day, one of the lovely girls at my yoga class suggested going for a lesson at the vinoteca she's been studying at and it was the most fun I'd had in ages! For the paltry sum of 10 Euros we had a lesson on the basics of wine tasting from the lovely Antonio, then got to taste one white and three reds - all the while excitedly jotting down notes on the forms he'd laid out for us. Contrary to what I'd been lead to believe about wine tasting - we swallowed everything and there was none of that spitting it out stuff that I'd seen on TV programmes. After the main technical tasting bit, the 8 of us were invited to polish off the 4 bottles which he accompanied with some great jamon ibérico, tuna salad, cured manchego cheese and the best preserved red peppers I've ever tried. Needless to say, by the end of it, we'd all made friends and were more than a little tipsy. In order to assist one of the tastings you have to either be a student at the school, or be invited by a student (as was our case) - but after having such a great afternoon I'm actually considering doing the beginners course which works out at 75 euros for 4 2 hour sessions - for anyone else who's interested you can check out their website - I know it all looks a bit basic, but it's because they're in the midst of moving premises and I can promise that the quality of the tuition and the wine was spot on :-)

P.s. It's right by metro Almendrales - no I'd never heard of the station either - but it's about 6 stops from Sol on the yellow line.

What's your one thing to do in Madrid?

Sometimes, living here, I forget that Madrid rocks! In this video, Charley Boorman (of 'Long Way Round' fame - that series where he travels the world by motorbike with Ewan Macgreggor) shares his pick of the city's delights - courtesy of Amex. It's a short clip but it shows the Palacio Real, the Retiro park, the Templo de Debod (a real Egyptian temple given to Spain by the Egyptian authorities in the 60's) plus the bear and strawberry statue - it actually explains the story behind what has always seemed to me like quite an odd symbol for a city - but hey, if Rome can have two kids suckling a she-wolf then I guess anything goes.

I won't tell you what his 'one thing to do' in Madrid is, but check it out and see if you agree :-)

Getting a haircut in Madrid – Do’s and Don’ts

Excuse the blurry photo I took of myself post-haircut!

This is something I’ve mentioned before but have been meaning to come back to. Here’s my light-hearted take on getting your hair cut in Madrid:

Don’t expect UK-style ‘customer service’ – in all but the most expensive of hairdressers you will be offered no tea or coffee, you will not be given ‘hair catalogues’ to browse and more often than not you will not get a consultation. In all likelihood someone will wash your hair and the first time the hairdresser sees your tresses they will be wet and he/she will therefore have no idea of your hair texture.

Do expect a great blowdry. I’ve had good cuts and less-good cuts, but one thing that is consistently great here is the news-reader/pornstar blowdry. Ask for ‘las puntas hacia fuera, con volumen’ for Farrah Fawcett style flicks. If you have an event to go to, or just fancy having big hair, DO just have a blowdry, you’ll feel great and it won’t break the bank.

Do expect them to say they’ll only cut off ‘3 dedos’ (3 fingers) only to realise that your hairdresser’s idea of a finger is the thickness of a Lancashire sausage. Isn't that the case everywhere though?

Don’t expect kid gloves. You can get a decent haircut in high street chains, like Marco Aldany, but you may find the treatment a bit rough and ready. If you have knots, they will be yanked rather than teased out of your hair, and your stylist is likely to assume your head has a heat-proof asbestos coating.

Do tip if you want to. A euro is fine, I’ve seen others just pop it into the hairdresser’s pocket so I do the same if their work is good.

In cheaper salons DON’T say yes to all the extras they’ll try to land on you. That means saying no to máscara (masque) and sí to crema (conditioner). The products might be ok, but often some amateurish trainee hair-washer will just plop an expensive hair mask onto the roots rather than ends of your non-towel-dried hair and it won’t take effect.

Do ask for capas finas (fine layers) otherwise your stylist may be tempted to go for ultra chunky ones which may or may not be suited to your hair depending on how thick it is (On average Spanish hair is thicker than anglo-saxon hair so this means the typical layering here is very choppy - which looks great on thick hair, but can leave finer hair looking a little wispy)

If you have dark hair DO ask for 'mechas finas de color caramelo' (fine honey blonde highlights) unless you want thick orange tiger stripes.

Do make use of hairdressing wholesalers – for professionals only in the UK, here you can often go in and buy salon-only products in enormous containers. There’s one on c/Argumosa on Lavapíes – sorry I don’t know the name or number, but if you walk down the street you will see it if you have your eyes open as it’s pretty big – I promise!

Do ask for a baño de colour rather than tinte if you want semi-permanent colour.

If you'd like to avoid all of the above, you can go to Aveda on C/Ortega y Gasset, 2 friends have recommended it to me. Also, if you want to get your hair done by Victoria Beckham’s ex hairdresser go to Lorena Morlote on C/Don Ramón de la Cruz - they used to do Posh’s extensions when she lived here. I went there for a Yuko Japanese straightening treatment about 5 years ago and they cut my hair really well, brought breakfast and massaged half my body. And so they should have to that price. Alas, now I save the pennies by going to franchises like Jofer, but using the ‘rules’ above it normally turns out ok :-)

Be a lady that lunches in Madrid

The good thing about going for an early evening aperitif in Madrid is the variety; one afternoon you might fancy cañas (tiny measures of ice-cold lager) at a bohemian terraza in the dishevelled yet increasingly on-the-up neighbourhood of Lavapies, another day it could be Mojitos in one of the over-crowded hippy-chic bars in La latina and sometimes (ok, very occasionally) you might just want to hang out in your local ‘old man bar’ – this Madrileño institution fascinated me for my first few months here; granite work tops, unflattering strip lighting, ensaladilla rusa (‘russian’ potato salad) cemented with dollops of mayonnaise, sculpted into domes and ornamented with olives and anchovies, slot machines, and of course, the ubiquitous old men, who line up at the bar downing black coffee laced with whisky, animatedly exchanging anecdotes or staring trance-like at the sports news on the flat screen TV. So '70s. Anyway, that was my poetic little bit about old men bars :-)

Sometimes however, you want something a bit different, you want to get out your best handbag and rub shoulders with groomed señoras with perfect helmet-hair and huge pearl earrings. You want to be a lady that lunches. Or at least a lady that drinks Martinis or enjoys her tea in fine bone china. Here are some suggestions for when a more pija ambience takes your fancy:

Living in London

I think I’ve blogged about this before. It’s a little ‘English’ tea place in the heart of Alonso Martínez (C/Santa Engracia 4). Decked out like Fortnum and Mason's and serving real Earl Grey from dainty silverware, it’s one of the few places in Madrid you can get a cream tea. I also recommend the bresaola and rocket finger sandwich. Has a little shop annexed to it selling such sundries as Walker’s crisps at extortionate prices, and a partner store a couple of doors down selling traditional English homewares – bearing in mind whoever owns this place must think Brits frolic about the house in chintz pinnies pruning our miniature rose bushes with William Morris stamped secateurs (Sp?). I love the sentiment however.

Source

El Espejo

In the heart of museum-land on Paseo de Recoletos is the art deco pavillion El Espejo. I admit that I’ve only been for a Vermut on the terazza but I plan to go back and see what it’s like to eat inside. Even if you don’t want to eat here, its worth ordering something in the pavement cafe if only for the people watching and live piano music.

Embassy

Maybe even a little posher than the above 2, after all we are ladies (and boys) that lunch :-) I ended up here completely by accident when meeting the friend of a friend. Established getting on for 100 years ago by an Irish emigree who complained that there was nowhere in Madrid where a lady could go unaccompanied for a cup of tea. Thanks to her, us ladies can do tea here (in company or otherwise). Great tea list, pastries, restaurant and delicatessen. Get to the tea room early to ensure you get a table.

Source

Mercado de Antón Martín

A secondary benefit of my new found decision to get up and exercising on Saturday mornings is that I can make it to the Mercado de Antón Martín on C/Santa Isabel before it shuts at 2. This large covered market is just 5 minutes from my house, but as it involves climbing a hill and getting dressed before midday on a Saturday I tend to give it a miss and end up buying food from expensive little corner shops or Carrefour - both of which sell the world's most flavourless fruit and vegetables. When I got there yesterday I could have kicked myself for not shopping there sooner - there was a great variety of stalls and the owners were invariable cheery and helpful. I homed in on a stand selling corn-fed chicken and free-range eggs from Galicia - I've since tried both - as scrambled eggs for breakfast and as pasta with chicken, lemon, and asparagus - delicious on both counbts. It's not all tradional Spanish fayre though, between the stalls of embutidos and tins of preserved fish I was really surprised to find a sushi kiosk right there in the middle of the market. I got there so early that Japanese girl who runs it was still setting up, but it looked great and really fresh, and I'll definitely be back to sample some. Perhaps I'll get some sushi in for this dinner party that I've been threatening to host for the past 6 months :-)

Haircuts and movies

A couple of weeks back I blogged about the possibility of having movie nights with my film-buff pals C and J. Well, yesterday evening (before watching the UK-USA draw at a local bar) I went with them to see, À bout de souffle (Breathless in England/USA), a French film from the 60's, in the lovely cinema at the Circulo de Bellas Artes in Madrid. My very crude summary would be that it's about a petty thief attempting to escape the law and his love affair with a cool Amercian girl who's studying at the Sorbonne. I have to say I wasn't blown away, but I did like the interaction between the impossibly cute protagonists - Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jean Selberg. It was also lovely to be able to recognise just a few phrases in French :-)

Throughout the movie Jean Selberg sports a gorgeous crop, something I could never get away with. I think there is a certain myth that to have such short hair and still look feminine you need to be very beautiful - I don't think this is stricty true - but I do think you need to have killer cheekbones and a sort of elfin look - neither of which is true in my case. But it did make me think, how lovely it would be never to have to blowdry again, to just wash and go, what freedom!

All this talk of hair is because I am thinking about getting a haircut, something which I often find to be totally traumatic - what if they cut it ALL off? Nothing too short, just a sort of long bob - a bit like what I have now, but shorter and with more shape and vavavoom :-) Below is some of my 'hairspiration':

Whilst we were at the Circulo, we also checked out an exhibition by Hungarian Bauhaus era photographer and artist Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, which is certainly worth a look. However, as usual, my attention was captured by the banal rather any particular masterpiece - hence my snap of the cinematic toilet doors in the bellas artes cinema:

Madrid shopfronts continued

I have an odd penchant for retro shopfronts. And in Madrid there are so many little stores that haven't changed their frontage since before the end of the dictatorship. It's not just the fonts that are retro though, the window displays can also be, er, intriguing; the granny lingeries stores with 'floating' underwear suspended on transparent fishing wire so that knickers and nighties seemed to be dancing in front of your very eyes; restaurants that display their seafood on ice in a little 'peepview' window - more recently I have started to suspect that those fish might be fake, as it always seems to be the 'same' cod that stares back at you from behind the glass, even on a Sunday when the place is closed for business); shops that sell only potato chips, and actually fill their window spaces to eye level with unbagged chips that nestle greasily against the glass panes. The signage is often pretty cool too. Above is the front of Cafe Santander, and old-school corner cafe in Alonso Martínez (the barrio where I would kill to live). It's one of those landmark places where you arrange to meet friends outside but never enter, because you are under the age of 60 - inside it's pure 1973; aluminium, neon lights and waist-coated waiters. And it looks like I'm not the only one with a thing for old shops. Check out Store Front: the disappearing face of New York by James T. and Karla L. Murray, the next thing I'm going to order on Amazon.

Madrid la nuit

Saturday night was a pretty odd one. We started off on C/Pez, eating tapas in the Pontepez place of my last post and the famed cornflake chicken. The food got even more ‘innovative’ this time; a pear and rocket salad with pansies and mozzarella ice-cream, yes pansies and mozzarella ice-cream. Sometimes such odd combinations work, but for some reason this one didn’t work that well – but at only 3 Euros I’m not complaining, besides everything else we ate was delicious (alioli baked baby potatoes, croquetas and cecina – a type of cured beef from León).


Food was followed by meeting more friends closer to my neighbourhood. One of them had been invited to a party in a squat, yes a squat, by some random girl in the street (this really was a weird weekend) – to which I said NO WAY am I going to a squat. That sort of thing might have had its appeal as a grungy teen, but certainly not now! However, I opened up to the idea more when he told me it was in this palacete (little palace) near my house which had been done up but then left empty for as long as I could remember. I figured it was worth us dropping by and taking a 5-minute look just to see the interior of the building for the first and possibly last time. Drop by we did, and boy was it disappointing, we thought there’d be some sort of secret knock to get into this ‘illegal party', but no, it’s doors were thrown open to the public with huge banners inviting passer bys to come in. Once inside, it was obvious they’d made no effort to make things look nice, there was a makeshift bar selling stuff like calimocho, a hideous coca-cola and red wine mix that Spanish teens drink, and some kid attempting to rap - what was I expecting to be honest? All we really wanted to do was go upstairs and check out the palace, but when we couldn’t find any way up we asked the girl serving at the bar where the stairs were, whos reply was ‘today’s our inauguration, you can't go upstairs’. This kind of shocked me, to see someone who had illegally broken into and taken over a building suddenly getting all high and mighty about who could and could not access different parts of it!

Realising we weren’t going to see anything, we quickly left, ending up in Begin the Beguine on c/Moratín. It seems that Saturday was my official ‘seedy day’, as this little bar is possibly even seedier than a squat – though very, very atmospheric. It wouldn’t be my first choice for a night out, but about once a year I like to go there simply because it’s so different. From the outside you’d barely know there was a bar there as its shutters are completely closed and the door is hard to open – once inside, I can only compare it to what I imagine a 19th century opium den must have looked like! Tiny and smoky, brown wood-panelled walls covered in dusty second hand trombones and other wind instruments, everything has this sort of shiny brown patina of age, velvet couches, glass lamps – dominated by a large circular bar in the centre from where they serve huge caipirinhas in flower-vases. To be fair, there’s absolutely no debauchery going on inside, but it feels like at any moment some Matahari type figure is going to appear, donning a negligee and a cigarette holder and do some sort of exotic dance. Madrid nightlife is certainly never boring or predictable.

Chicken nuggets with a twist

This isn't a review, more of a quick mention. The other night I was introduced to Cervecería Pontepez, on Calle Pez in Malasaña. There wasn't time to do much sampling, but I have to give a nod of recognition to the 'Pollo con krispies con salsa de curry y helado de coco' - basically cornflake-breaded chicken goujons with curry sauce (one as deliciously cloying as the Macdonald's sauce, which I love, no joke) served with a ball of coconut ice-cream. Surprisingly, it was pretty delicious. I can't say the same for the hummus, which was ok, but by no means great. In fact I can't remember the last time I had good hummus in Spain, restaurants seem to think if they jusy whizz up a jar of chickpeas and add a bit of cumin that's enough - but it isn't if you grew up on the real thing :-) Anyway, Pontepez is definitely worth returning to, as I'm keen to try out the other innovative stuff they have on their menu.

The other reason I've chosen to post on it is that I'm pretty sure that this is one of the bars I checked out about 5 years ago when I was about to give it all up to start my own cafe and spend all day slaving over a hot stove. Seeing how the former owners had been bankrupted by their business (or maybe the business had been bankrupted by them?) was perhaps a deciding factor in me not going down that route.