Spain: Toledo and bull fighting

The third day of Spain started with an hour bus ride to a hilly town called Toledo. It was a very fine weather day, with loads of wind and sun. So, me relieving the days of me in Singapore, shorts and T-shirts. Anyway, Toledo is a tourist area (a hilly one) and so, there wasn’t really a lot of good food in the town, not to mention expensive. But we end up in this small local restaurant near some cathedral which serves food that’s acceptable to most of our standard.

The restaurant 

 Russian Salad-eggs + tuna + mixed peas

Our mains – I cannot remember what they are

Toledo town is famous for their Mazapán cookies. It is not actually the crunchy almond cookies that we eat every Chinese new year. Just imagine soft cake with almond flavour. For you guys who don’t like almond after taste, please stay away from this sweet thing right? Because, even I don’t mind the almond after taste, I couldn’t bring myself to love this thing.

 

The nice packaging from the famous Santo Tome

 

They even made a castle out of Marzapan

Fourth day was sleep in day for most of us. But for me, I rushed to the nearest McDonald’s for their wifi to clear my super backlogged work. Boyfriend and I woke up early, and went to this famous store for the famous and sinful breakfast that every Spaniard love. Let me present, chocolat con churros. Churros is actually a longish fried donut. To me, it taste like you tiao minus the saltiness. Okay, it’s just donut, so why is it sinful? Well can you see the dark cup of thing beside it? The cup is filled with thick chocolate. And it’s pure chocolate. So, one will dip the churros into the chocolate and voila! you have the perfect breakfast that anyone could ask for. Of course this shop being famous,serves this special breakfast at a price slightly higher than any other cafe. But, they are really good, Chocolatería San Ginés.

Chocolat con churros

And for our final lunch in Madrid, we went back to Terra mundi again. This time, it was a Sunday and the cafe was super packed. We need to wait for a good 20 minutes before we were brought to our table. But, as the saying goes “good things come to those who wait”, the food never let us down.

Tortilla Espanyola – Spanish omelette with potatoes

 

After lunch, we are off to bull-fighting in Plaza de Torros de Las Ventas. Read more about bull-fighting in boyfriend’s blog.

After the bull-fight, we went to another budget eatery we read from wikitravel called Cerveceria 100 Montaditos. This is yet another place to eat sandwiches with prices for as low as 1 euros. However, the size of the sandwich here is much smaller than that served in Museo del Jamon. But of course they have more varieties with the bread and fillings and their sandwiches are warm.

Our sandwiches surrounding some chips

Spain: Madrid and its ham museum

Madrid day 2 started with us joining the Sandeman’s free walking tour. They are quite good. Our tour guide is quite informative and knows a lot about the history (well I think it’s partly because he is a history major in Madrid). Free walking tours do not charge for their tours and each tour guide works on tips basis. So basically, you can give him/her any amount that you feel the tour is worthy of. Budget travelling check!

On our way to the meeting place of the tour, Plaza Mayor, we walked into this market place selling all sorts of food, from hams, sausages to buns and cakes.

Buns and empanada

During lunch, tour guide guy brought us to this place called Museo del Jamon (pronounce as kha-mon) which literally means the ham museum. Apart from the name, there is nothing about the shop that looks like museum, except if you consider all the ham legs that are hanging around the shop as artefacts.

 

Ham attack!!

Museo del Jamon is a place for cheap eateries. They sell certain bocadillo (sandwich) and drinks (including beer, coke and fanta) at 1 euro. Yes 1 EURO. And their sandwich to me is considered quite awesome for 1 euro, with ham/bacon and cheese. One thing, their bread is not as dry as I thought, second, the ham used is real ham and not processed ones.

Some baguette with ham

Museo del Jamon is everywhere in Madrid. You can choose to either stand at the bar or have your proper meal in a comfortable situation with tables and chairs, but of course you need to pay extra for the food. Besides sandwiches, they sell assorted pastries as well. One can get breakfast, lunch, dinner, supper, tea, every meal at Museo del Jamon without burning ones wallet. Well, we almost did that. But their stuff were really good!

During the 4 days in Madrid, we at least have sandwiches from the shop for 3 days. I always choose croissant mixto as croissant is much more softer compared to baguette. One time, I ordered something called pan tomaca without actually knowing what it is. We waited for almost 15 minutes for the thing to be served, and it turns out to be toasted garlic bread. Of course with a piece of ham on it. It’s damn good. And their coffee deserved to be given some acknowledgement. In fact, the coffee that we had in Spain never go wrong. Any stall you go, the cafe con leche (coffee with milk) never ever goes wrong. Even their McDonald’s coffee taste 100 times better the one served in Singapore/Malaysia. I wish I could make such wonderful coffee one day.

So, if you are looking for cheap alternative to eat, try Museo de Jammon. It is really not bad! Budget travelling check again!

After the tour, we went to the town to get tickets for bullfight! Along the way we saw many many ice-cream stalls. Did I tell you I have a soft spot for desserts? So, I kinda talked boyfriend into getting an ice-cream to share (plus the weather’s is awfully hot), and they are really good. Better than the whippies sold around London ;)

Ice-cream with two scoops of flavours which I couldn’t recall

For dinner, we went on to Mercado San Miguel for some racione and tapas. This place is a real market which sells poultry, meat and vege. But at night, it transforms itself into a place for people to eat and chill. Come to think of it, this is the closest they get to pasar malam. So boyfriend and I got some tapas to share

This is the Spanish version of Sushi! We had salmon, mussels, tuna and herring fish and they were all so fresh! 

    

This is some skewer with iberian ham and plum (outer) and some chicken thingy (inner)

Spain: Madrid Day 1

So, the spring break is here. For ONE WHOLE MONTH!!!!!! Anyway, boyfriend and I have been planning this trip since forever and finally it is here. Our first stop is Madrid. We flew of to Madrid with 3 of our friends, 2 days before the Spring break even started *giggle*

Spain: land of Flamenco Dance, land of bull fight, country with loads of UNESCO heritage site. But I am going to dedicate the next few posts to the glorious food (some not too glorious) that we had in this lovely country

As I mentioned, our first stop is Madrid. After checking into Sudamericana Hostel (totally crappy one, never ever book this if you are in Madrid), we went around hunting for food as commanded by our growling stomachs. Since it’s 3 p.m., the cafes/restaurants are near to what they call the siesta which means afternoon break. So, when we came by this shop Terra Mundi which offers Menu del dia (Menu of the day) for 10.50 euros, we decided to settle with this tapas bar.

The boss greeted us, tried his very hard to explain the menu to us using his limited vocabulary of English. He was a little frustrated when we couldn’t believe that we are having a three-course lunch with drinks for 10.50 euros. This is what we had:

Starter (Primero)Gazpacho: A traditional cold soup made of tomatoes and vegetables. Very refreshing and great dish to start the meal

Pasta with fish: To me, this taste like the Assam Laksa that my mom cooked, minus the spiciness. The fish is fresh!!!

Mains (Segundo)

Pork knuckles: Who said you can only eat it in Germany? Madrid has their own version of knuckles. The meat was heavenly soft and juicy. However, quite tasteless, but well, it’s a healthy meal.

Dessert (Postre):

Lemon custard puff: I chose this because I thought it was gonna be sour-ish. But it was quite sweet. However, the puff was really very good.

 Strawberries in some juice: I don’t have to explain much with strawberries. Everything goes well with strawberries.

After exploring the Madrid town, we are once again searching for dinner, at 11p.m.! Not healthy but oh well once in a while would not do much harm.

This time, we settled for this restaurant which I have forgotten the name. The food wasn’t as good as our Lunch. But, we still ordered 2 sets of menu to share. So, in this picture you can see, is the starter before the starter. Haha. Yes, they like their bread or baguette. Any restaurant/cafe you go, you will sure get some bread to line your stomach and also to sweep up all the delicious gravy that comes with the food. But the original way is to eat it with olive oil and Balsmic vinegar, which I did not dare to try.(:P)

Besides that, they love olives a lot. Like a lot. See the huge amount of serving? One Spaniard might be able to finish the whole plate when I would not touch any.

And then the cheese. Cheese=heaven. I love cheese! So, I don't have to explain much.

Boyfriend did not managed to take any picture of our starters and main course so I can’t explain much. But in general, we thought the food was just okay.

We ordered Sangria as well for dinner. But the Sangria is some diluted version and they do not have the fruit punch taste nor the fruit bits. So disappointed with our first trial. 

That’s basically what we had for day 1. And I am feeling very hungry as I am typing this post away.