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!

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 :-)

Saturday evening

I had a lovely evening on Saturday - dinner at a friend's house, delicious prawns, lots of laughs and dodgy music :-)

G&Ts Bristol-style

Yesterday evening I met with a group of old friends for dinner at the Bristol Bar on c/Almirante 20 in Chueca, and as ever, when trying somewhere new, I like to give my opinion :-)

The decor in the Bristol is half English gentlemen’s club – half trendy Chueca and the clientele midweek is a smart after-work crowd. But perhaps the main reason to come is to sample one of the over 60 varieties of Gin on offer – perfect, if like me, your favourite tipple is a bit of ‘mother’s ruin’. As a Brit I have to say some of the props and references seemed a bit faux-posh and made me grin – the Churchill Lounge (pictured right, with portraits of said prime minister), the Upper Class Gin Club (puhleese!) and huge prints of Queen Victoria, the royal insignia and the Bristol Suspension Bridge. But then again, sometimes it’s nice to wallow in another nation's nostalgic view of what your country is like :-)

Back to last night. After a G&T – yes, I had a G&T before dinner, we sat down to eat. We started with some good foie gras with caramelised apple and melba toast, a couple of us followed this with bangers and mash and the others tried the Cajun swordfish, salmon fishcakes and club sandwich. The bangers and mash were ok, more than ok, but not amazing. We finished off with apple pie and custard – again perfectly acceptable but not-mind-blowing. Other Anglo Saxon influenced dishes on the menu are steak and Guinness pie, toad in the hole and fish and chips Refreshingly they had a good selection of international wines, so we went with a delicious South African red in honour of the World Cup. All in all a good evening and it was great to catch up with people . Would I go back? Maybe not for dinner but definitely for a drink and perhaps next time to sample their brunch and English breakfast. Chin chin.

Bits of my weekend

The weekend started for me on Thursday when we had a day off for Corpus Christi - it was back to work for a half day on Friday but that doesn't really count. I've had a bit of everything so far this weekend, shopping, eating, relaxing and partying; I bought some cute black pumps in Nine West and stripey sailor top in Pimkie and now the sun's coming out I restocked on Clinique's City Block sheer SPF25 - there's probably better sun protection out there, but for me this product is the only one that's truly oil-free - the rest just make me break out (if you are pale skinned they have a factor 40 too, but it's too chalky for my skin tone).

After shopping there were tintos de verano (red wine and lemon spritzers) and delicious little bites of battered cod at Casa Labra, on C/Tetuan in Sol with my dear friends C and K - it can be almost impossible to get an outside seat at this old-school Madrileño institution, but we got there as it opened and grabbed a table on the pavement.

And on Friday was my friend A's birthday, 36, but I swear she doesn't look a day over 28. I got all dressed up for the occassion in my 'lucky' leopard print heels which are possibly the comfiest shoes I own. We used to work for the same company, and have both been through a whole lot of trials and tribulations over the past few years so it was good to see her back on her feet and celebrating. As a gift I got her some smellies from my lovely l'Occitane - by the way they have a new peony range for anyone who's interested. Anyway, what started out as food and a little singstar (or whatever it's called) contest at hers ended up being an all-nighter - out till 6am at a townie club I hadn't been to in years called, ahem, Torero (bullfighter). To give you an idea of how long it was since I'd been to this place - last time I was there I was wearing red and white from head to foot and was accompanied by a gaggle of long-haired gypsy men - we are talking a long time ago. Thankfully times and fashions have since changed. I admit to being more than a little tipsy and dancing the night away to the likes of Lady Gaga and Ke-dollarsign-ha.

Thankfully my energetic moves burnt off most of the G&Ts and after a good night's sleep, I woke up at midday feeling almost spritely. 2 episodes of Glee later (I admit to having a huge crush on Mr Schuster) I managed to pull myself off the sofa, get showered and head off to the Retiro park on my own to practice closeups of flowers with my new camera.... However, my picnic blanket and the cool grass underfoot were too tempting, and no sooner had I entered the park I bedded down with a cornetto and a book (Tony Robbins' Awaken the Giant within - don't ask - I have a strange penchant for burly Republican motivational speakers which I will explain in another post) and spent the next couple of hours chilling. To be fair I did walk around and try to get a snap or two, but realised that there are no flowers in Madrid in summer as they usually get sunburnt to death. So I took a photo of the fake flowers on my balcony - I worry about the neighbours realising they're not genuine so I cunningly mix them in with real greenery ;-) Why I care about what the neighbours think I really don't know.

Weekend fun - promise to self

Over the past few months I've moaned aplenty about my 'working weekends' - the glut of freelance work that's been coming my way since November, and how it's been a blessing but also a total fun-killer. Ok, not a total fun-killer beacuse I've still found time to do stuff like go to my friend Justo's birthday picnic (above photo from this weekend). In any case, this should be my last working weekend for a while, the projects have dried up and I won't be soliciting any more for the moment. I look back and think of all those free and easy weekends I had and how I enjoyed them but also how I wasted time and didn't make the most of them. This is a little list, a little promise to self, of all the things I want to do with my weekends and evenings:

• finally do that sushi course.
• make serious introads into my novel.
• make lovely cakes like I used to (ok, a long time ago) and invite people round to eat them.
• do more yoga.
• go for massages.
• phone people more.
• run.
• try out my huge list of downloaded recipes.
• watch all those films I've been meaning to see.
• take French classes.

Ok, I'm going back to work for now, but these few seconds of indulgence will hopefully give me the boost I need to finish off that stuff and start doing this stuff!

Boyfriends, book-clubs and brunches

I’m pretty busy these days – work, yoga, freelance writing and more. But I might be about to get busier. When you’re single (fairly recently single) the temptation is to fill up the time with hobbies and social activities. And why not. This is exactly what I’ve been doing, yet I still feel like something’s missing. Uh, a partner? Well, maybe not – at least not for now. What’s dawned on me these past few days is that aside from all the other stuff (affection, shared plans, etc) having a partner usually involves being part of some sort of community, a group of friends perhaps, of which you, as a pair, form a part, but also a close-knit community of 2, and much of that can disintegrate when you part ways. Of course I have my ‘community’, I have great friends, and a loving albeit expatriated family. But when you’re in a relationship with someone, it’s more than that, you have routines and habits. For example, I know I’m likely to see my friends quite a lot this next month, but I’m not sure when or how this will happen due to our various commitments. Whereas when you have a significant other you usually know; ‘Wednesdays we stay in and see a film’, or, ‘we like to lie in on Sundays and go for a late breakfast in xxx’. It’s not that I’m craving a life of dull routine... far from it, but I miss some of that sense of shared short term plans. Anyway, the other night when we were having a (delicious, delicious) curry in Moharaj in Lavapiés the lovely owner told us that on certain days of the week there was a 50% discount – and my friend Kate said ‘well, why not make it a monthly thing...?’ And it got me thinking, that’s what I’m missing – so why not a monthly movie night (my friends Carlos and Justo are huuuge movie buffs and always trying to get me to watch films with them), or what about a book club? Or a weekend pot luck lunch or brunch thing, hosted in a different house every month? Food for thought.

P.s. If anyone is interested in eating at Moharaj, they don’t have a website but they can be found on C/Buenavista Nº 42. The nearest metro stations are Lavapiés and Antón Martín. It’s not fancy but it’s by far the best balti in the barrio and is better than their sister branch on C/Ave Maria. :-)