More Menú del Día

Aside from my two trips to Morocco and Valencia, January was a fairly uneventful month. Well, I guess it depends on how you define eventful; one awesome thing about living in a foreign country is that even just staying at home, getting to know a new part of the city or trying out a new bar or restaurant can be an "event," depending on your perspective. Sometimes even going to the grocery store you can find interesting things, like this wine-tasting machine my roommate and I found (and enjoyed) one evening:

Wine-tasting machine in the grocery store

The main highlights of January were the meetings of our menú del día food group. One night we met up for "fancy ramen," a culinary experience which is apparently very popular right now. The place was so crowded that we had to put our name on a list and wait 2 hours! But it was OK, because in the meantime we went to a famous sangria bar nearby called Cuevas sésamo, a very old bar which has welcomed the likes of Ava Gardner, Ernest Hemingway and Jean Cocteau, to name a few. There we enjoyed the traditional Spanish drink made of wine, fruit and soda to the accompaniment of atmospheric - albeit mediocre - piano music. Needless to say we felt very classy and like we had been transported back in time.

Cuevas del Sésamo

The ramen, when we finally got our table, was also quite scrumptious, albeit a bit overpriced.

Fancy ramen

Our best menú del día meet-up, however, was right after winter holidays. The first weekend back after Christmas break, our token Spanish member Maria suggested we all meet up for a "little drink" to catch up after break and to ring in the new year. Little did we know that this "little drink" was actually an entire tapas tour which she had planned out, just to show us some historical and special places in Madrid!

Our group enjoying the drinks and tapas

She took us to a total of seven bars - at least I think there were seven, but to be honest I lost count at some point - and each one had some special story behind it. One bar was known for having the best "tira," or draft-pouring technique; another was a quirkily-decorated bar called Maceiras which specializes in food and drinks from Galicia, a region in the north of Spain above Portugal. There we drank a dry white wine in cuencos, the little white bowls you can see us holding in the picture below.

Drinking wine from cuencos in Maceira

We also went to a bar which started in the 1930's as a small store specializing in cured sausage, and which was frequented by Madrid's high society of the time. Maria helped us select some special red wines, and they were all exquisite!

Delicious wine

We also visited one of the oldest bars in Madrid, a place with atmospheric dark wooden panelling and giant barrels of sherry lining the wall. Sherry is not only their specialty, but is just about the only thing they sell. If you've never had sherry, it's a very dry, very strong wine which is actually from the south of Spain, from a region called Jérez. When the wine was exported to the UK and became popular, some businessmen had the marketing idea to change the name to sherry, which is much easier to pronounce for English-speakers than the throaty "j" of Spanish.

Sherry in one of the oldest bars in Madrid

Unfortunately, in spite of looking very fancy and sophisticated, we all found the taste of the sherry to be absolutely abysmal. Because it's so strong, it tastes like you're drinking a liquor rather than a wine. None of us were fans, but we struggled through it anyway so that we could enjoy the atmosphere.

Our reaction to the sherry

Later in the night, we visited Casa Granada, a rooftop bar which is hidden at the top of a residential building. When you walk by on the street, you're almost guaranteed to miss the sign unless you know what you're looking for. And even if you find the sign, you are likely to be puzzled about how to get to the bar, as the door seems to lead to the lobby of an apartment building and not to any sort of commercial establishment. You feel like you're trespassing in someone's private property, but when you get to the top floor, you find the bar with its lovely terrace. Unfortunately the outdoor seating was full when we went, so we just had one overpriced drink and then headed out.

Casa Granada rooftop bar

We ended the night at a bar called Txirimiri (pronounced "chi-ri-mi-ri," tx in Basque makes a "ch" sound) specializing in food from the Basque Country in the north of Spain. We tried some black rice, which is made with squid ink! I found it a bit odd, but enjoyed trying something new. It's a very famous dish in Spain and everyone else really liked it.

"Black rice" with squid ink

In the end, Maria's "little drink" turned into an entire evening of drinking and eating our way across the city center of Madrid. It was particularly cool for me because it's only the second or third time I've gone out in the truly Spanish style, drinking and eating a little in several bars over the course of many hours. It's a very different approach to going out and an important part of Spanish culture, so obviously something I should take advantage of while I'm here. Plus, we had a great time hanging out together and getting to try so many different places!