Mercado de San Miguel and Restaurant Botin

I'm sure I have said it before, but one of my favourite things to do is visit markets. Not only does it give you a great idea of what is fresh, local and in season, but seeing what locals are buying and cooking is a great way to understand the cuisine of a new place. So that's what I decided to do next in Madrid.

I had heard about an old market that had been closed down and renovated to be almost like a food court, but with a great selection of fresh produce to choose from. The Mercado de San Miguel is based on an idea I haven't seen before.


No row upon row of the same thing over and over again, but a spacious area designed for eating and selecting food from one of the specialty providers that surround it.

Mostly there is one of each type of stall, there is a seafood bar selling fresh and cooked seafood.


Another stand sells oysters, priced by size and shucked to order.


Not far away is a deli that sells small rolls with various jamons and other meats for 1 Euro each.


A cheese stall not far away sells samples on bread for 1 Euro each and there are a couple of wine shops selling wine by the glass. This is a great way to put together a lunch full of variety and try several different things.



You then take your plate and find a seat at a table or bench (or wherever you can) and enjoy your food.


For dessert you have a couple of options, there is a cake shop selling some great looking slices of cake and a selection which makes it very hard to make up your mind.


Also, for all my chocolate loving readers, there is a whole shop full of it.


This market is reasonably expensive as far as markets go, but this is more like a combination of a market and a food court which sells incredibly fresh and high quality food.

The next restaurant on my list is, according to Guinness World Records, the oldest operating restaurant in the world. Casa Botin in Madrid has been operating continuously since 1725, almost 300 years. Their specialty is cochinillo asado -Roast Suckling Pig, something I was very much looking forward to.


Walking into the restaurant is almost like walking back in time, they obviously focus very much on keeping the feel of history and tradition alive.


As delicious as that jamon looks, I wasn't here for that. Walking down the stairs into one of the various dining rooms, I had to watch my head on the low ceilings. Looking at the menu, the house menu of Gazpacho, Suckling Pig and Ice cream seemed like the way to go.

The bread and Sangria arrived first.


The gazpacho came out as a bowl of plain, cold soup and the waiter brought around a tray of garnishes to add to it, including cucumber, peppers, tomato and bread.


Bursting with bright, fresh, summer flavours, this was a great cold soup and a delicious was to start a summer dinner in Madrid.

Next came the star of the show, the suckling pig.


Tender, juicy and full of porky goodness, simply prepared in a way that has stood the test of time. No fancy embellishments or showy techniques, just a fantastic, fresh ingredient allowed to speak for itself....and yes, I did eat the tail.

There was also a live band which found their way down the narrow staircase to play and sing during the meal.


For dessert, the menu says dessert is simply "ice cream" and I wasn't expecting much, but whatever was in the chocolate topping they used on it, it was surprisingly good. Unfortunately the photo came out blurry, so I'm not posting it here. Needless to say, I very much enjoyed this meal and if I had more time in Madrid, I wouldn't mind a return visit to try the Roast Baby Lamb or the Baby Squids In Their Own Ink. Another dish on the menu which is worth a mention is the Baby Eels, a traditional Spanish dish of baby eels quickly fried in a small pot of olive oil with garlic and a small dried chili is one of the most expensive side dishes you will see at around 130 Euros per serve. This is apparently due to the rarity of these eels.

Another great day in Madrid and it's not over yet, look out for more updates coming soon.

Madrid

The last stop on my European journey is Madrid. Looking back over my trip, there were many highlights, no regrets and still one more week in a country that had already been the location for many great experiences. I was hoping that Madrid would continue this trend. Looking at the weather forecast, it looked like my entire stay in this city would be in the 30s. Hot and sunny, a great buffer between me and winter in Melbourne.

I was staying only a few steps from the Plaza Mayor, one of the large plazas in Madrid and a focal point for tourists and street performers alike.


The capital of Spain is well know for its food culture. Even though it is far from any coast, fresh seafood is flown in daily from all over Spain and other produce is available in abundance. While each region of Spain has a unique food identity, Madrid seems to be the place where everything comes together. Even though Valencia is known to have the best paella, I had heard that there was a restaurant in Madrid which was famous for their paella and so I had to give it a try.

The restaurant is La Barroca and is famous for....well, I better let them tell you what they are famous for.


There are several different types of paella on offer here, many with seafood, but I decided on the Valencian, which is with chicken and rabbit.


A very basic, traditional version of the dish, this was not bad, but not fantastic. All the flavours were there, but perhaps I should have had the seafood after all as this just seemed a little too simple.

The next restaurant on my list was one that until recently had two Michelin stars. This last restaurant is La Broche and was started by Sergi Arola and his executive chef at the time was Angel Palacios. They worked together in El Bulli and left to start La Broche. Recently, Sergi has left to start another project and Angel has become head chef here.

While getting a reservation for El Bulli is almost impossible, the influence of what is being done there is possible to see all over Spain. Therefore at La Broche I expected to see modern techniques used to present traditional flavours and maybe a few surprises thrown in for good measure.


The cool, modern exterior leads into a cool, modern, white interior which I found a little sterile, but that may have been due to that fact that I had booked a mid week early dinner (9:30pm) and was the first customer there. Some other customers did arrive later, but only 3 or 4 tables were occupied.


To begin, a snack was placed on the table.


On the far left is a bowl of spherified olives. They look like olives but when you bite them you realise that they are liquid made from olives and then formed into a spherical shape by a chemical process. You get the flavour and shape of the olive, but the texture is purely liquid. The third from the left is Chicken Crackling, the crispy deep fried chicken skin is delicious and crunchy.

The first appetiser course came out in a covered bowl and as the bowl was placed in front of me, the lid was removed and a billow of smoke wafted out. This was Smoked Mussel.


Served on a vegetable "charcoal", this was an interesting dish to watch unfold in front me, but unfortunately the smokiness was so strong that it overcame the whole dish and that was all I could taste.

The second appetiser is called Pizza Margherita.


A playful take on the traditional combination of dough, cheese, tomato and oregano, the base is a cracker with a slice of cheese on top. The red ball on the left is tomato flavoured and tastes a lot like the red sprinkles on Barbeque Shapes (YUM). On the right is a ball of what I assume is oregano foam, because once you break the surface, a green foam comes pouring out. This was fun and tasted great, giving me high hopes for the rest of the meal.

After this came Truffles, Ham and Corn.


A beautifully presented dish reapeating the theme ingredients in several ways, a corn puree, single piece of popped corn, served on a polenta base with paper thin crackling and a small cube of grilled ham. While this was great to look at and try to work out all the different elements, unfortunately it was lacking in depth of flavour and seemed a little bland.

Following this was a cold Strawberry Gazpacho.


A strawberry soup with a prawn in the middle, you'd expect it to be sweet and served at the end of the meal, but instead it was savoury and really brought out another side of the flavour of the strawberry.

The first of the main courses is Ox Crab.


Wrapped in a crepe made from soy milk curd is a gentle, smooth crab filling. Not strongly flavoured with crab, but the texture is silken and decadent.

The fish course is Salmon with Aniseed Flavours.

This is a great way to explore the different ways two tastes can work together, the salmon is perfectly cooked and combined with ingredients which each have a different type of aniseed flavour, including fennel and aniseed flowers.

Sirloin and Garlic is the meat course.


The meat is cooked medium-rare and falls apart at the slightest touch of the knife, tender and juicy. Once again, as with the previous dish, this is an exploration of different ways of preparing garlic to go with the beef. Half a blub of oven-roasted garlic, grilled garlic shoots, a garlic puree and a garlic custard are all on the plate. This was my favourite dish of the meal by far and the taste of the garlic was not overpowering at all, in fact I was trying to get all the different garlic elements into one bite with the meat and when I did it was still not too much garlic.

Dessert time already? The first dessert is a combination of Lemon and Green Tea.


The stick on top is made of green tea and it has a very strong, refreshing taste, the sorbet and gel disc are lemon flavoured and all served on biscuit crumbs. As a palette cleanser this works well and leaves me ready for the sweeter desserts to come.

The second dessert is called Tribute to Principe Biscuit.


Now I've never had or seen a Principe Biscuit and I can't even name all the flavours here, but it was sticky, sweet and delicious with lots of chocolate.

Lastly is a Lemon Jaconde Cake.


A jaconde is a type of sponge and with almond cream and ice cream, this was a delicate, airy and while not bad, not anything amazing as far as taste goes.

Another thing worth mentioning is the coffee selection.


With so many different types of coffee to choose from, coffee connoisseurs would be happy with this list. For me it was too much choice and a random selection, so I chose the Arabic.

As petit fours after the meal, the waiter comes around with a cars filled with six different containers with chocolate inside and asks which I would like to try. You can probably guess my answer already, so here are all six.


Some are filled with lemon sherbet, some with almonds, but the two that stand out are the popping candy inside dark chocolate and the cocoa covered corn. One of my brothers favourite snacks is something called corn nuts, large deep fried kernels of corn coated in a dusting of salty flavouring. The cocoa covered corn is basically the same thing and reminded me of corn nuts in a big way.

At the end of the day, I had a good meal at La Broche and the techniques on display were modern and skillful, but something seemed to be missing. Perhaps an over concentration on the techniques themselves and not enough attention to flavour balance is to blame, but dishes like Sirloin and Garlic are standouts for me.

MB Kursaal and The Spoon

Of all the places to find great food in San Sebastian, I thought I'd highlight two of my favourites.

There are several Michelin starred restaurants in San Sebastian, one of which is Restaurante Kursaal. The restaurant was unfortunately closed over the days that I was there, but there is a gastro-pub below the restaurant called MB Kursaal that serves great meals at more reasonable prices. As well as the a la carte menu, they offer a degustation menu which includes five courses, a cava cocktail, bread and wine.

As a snack, they serve some small olives which in contrast to their size have a very strong briney flavour.

The cava cocktail was served to start the meal.

Cava is a sparkling white wine and this was combined with fruit juice and was refreshing and perfect on a hot sunny day at the beach.

The appetiser was a Goat's Cheese and Prawn Salad.


The greens here are spinach leaves and the jelly cubes are a muscatel reduction. The green streak across the plate is chlorophyll. The goats cheese is creamy and salty, the spinach fresh and the muscatel jelly sweet and refreshing. The salty and sweet elements play against each other very well, but I think the salad itself may have been over-salted as the balance is not quite right and the overall taste seems to be too salty. Also, I don't think a single prawn is enough here.

The first main course is Creamy Seafood Rice with a Garlic Cream Foam.

Inside the rice are octopus slices and mussels. The Garlic Cream Foam is served in a separate dish as it disolves into the rice shortly after you pour it over due to the heat. The rice is indeed smooth, creamy and well cooked. The seafood is fresh and delicious, but once again a little lacking in quantity. The extra punch of garlic from the foam really gives this dish another dimension without overpowering the other flavours.

Fish of The Day is up next.

On the menu it says this is "served with a rich seafood jus, on a bed of crushed potatoes". Unfrotunately, this dish lacked a lot of flavour. The fish was cooked fine, but had a very mild taste and the "rich" jus was very bland and only served to water down the potatoes which already seemed quite mushy. A very disappointing dish.

The two desserts are served together and they are French Toast and a traditional Sheep's milk dessert.

The French Toast is made with egg yolks and fresh cream and served with a frozen cream and was delicate while being rich. The Sheep's Milk was topped with sugar and bruleed and served with a shot glass of ice-cold apple juice. These were both delicious desserts but the French Toast was my favourite.

This was a good meal, although a little hit and miss in some areas. For the price, it was good value and a very enjoyable way to spend a couple of hours at the beach on a sunny day in San Sebastian.

The other place that is definitely worth a mention is La Cuchara de San Telmo (The Spoon of Saint Telmo). They are doing pintxos of a high standard and cooked to order.

The first thing that I ordered was the Foie Gras.

This came served grilled slightly, with a dark sauce and on an apple puree with streaks of another green sauce. This melts in the mouth and is delicious and decadent.

After this I was looking at the chalkboard and seeing if I could recognise any of the dishes there or at least individual words which would give me an idea what the dish was talking about. I chose the Moleja a Terniera Asada con "Tximi-Txurri". The words I understood there were "Asada" which means grilled and "Tximi-Txurri" (pronounced Chimmi-Churri" is a sauce I know from many South American dishes that is made of vinegar, garlic and parsley and goes great with grilled meats. This is what this dish looks like.

This was served on an apple puree, just like the Foie...a coincidence, surely that I would pick the only two dishes on the menu with the same accompaniment. This was grilled delisiousness, but I know it was something offaly good from the texture, which was smooth and didn't have the fibrous meat of a steak or other muscle. I asked the waiter to translate it for me and it turns out that this is veal sweetbread. I definitely liked this and will look for it on menus when I get back to Melbourne for sure.

I figured I had been adventurous enough and handed over control of the next couple of pintxos to the bartender (who was also serving me a refreshing beer called Keller 18 I think). His first suggestion was a bacon-wrapped scallop.

This, strangely enough was served on an apple puree with streaks of green sauce. I'm noticing a pattern here. The scallop was perfectly cooked and the bacon was excellent as it should be in a country that celebrates the pig as much as Spain does. Another great dish, but I'm starting to get a little bored of apple puree.

The next suggestion was the veal cheek.

Now this is something I know and love, cheeks are a wonderfully tender meat in any animal, always a favourite of mine. In this case, the meat was so tender it fell apart as soon as my fork touched it, there was no need for a knife at all. This time, as I'm sure you've noticed, there is no apple puree, instead it's a potato puree. Absolutely stunning dish and one I did come back for a couple of days later.

The last suggestion of the bartender's was a grilled cheese. Not a sandwich, just a piece of cheese on the grill.

This is a soft cheese and as it grills it leaves a puddle of darker, more grilled cheese on the bottom. That is what you can see on the top, a disc of dark, caramelised cheese which has an amazing, intense flavour. Unfortunately, as you have so astutely spotted, this also brought the reappearance of the apple puree and green sauce.

That was the end of my first dinner here, but not my last as I came back again, trying to find some more sensational freshly cooked delights from the Spoon.

As I headed back to La Cuchara a couple of days later, there were a couple of dishes I wanted to try which I didn't get a chance to eat on my previous visit. The first of these is a dish featuring an ingredient you will see all over San Sebastian and is quite popular all over Spain. That is Pulpo, or Octopus.

Cooked "a la plantxa" (on the plank) this is baked on wood until tender and pretty much falling apart, this dish has a dense texture without being chewy, a very good example of this ingredient.

The second dish I wanted to try was the Magret de Pato.

This is a perfectly cooked piece of duck breast, but specifically from a duck that has produced foie gras. This is served on a slice of dried apricot which has been rehydrated. These flavours go very well together and the rich, slightly fatty duck is balanced by the sweetness of the apricot.

Spotting a word on the board I don't understand, I dive right in and order the Orejo Iberico Asada y Prensada. The words that I like here are Iberico - the famous pork that produces the best jamon - and asado (grilled). Must be some delicious grilled pork....

Looking at this, I knew it wasn't a cut of pork that is normally served as it clearly has some cartilage that is quite obvious. Quite willing to give anything a go as usual, I cut into this and the taste was smooth and porky, with a crunch from the cartilage and the skin. The translation for the name of this dish is "Ear of Iberian Pork, Grilled and Pressed". I love pigs ears and when they are roasted on a suckling pig are crunchy and delicious, in this case, this is obviously from an older pig and has quite a bit of soft delicate meat on it.

My last dish from La Cuchara was something I had been watching people order constantly on both my visits and that was the Risotto Cremoso de Queso de Cabra.


This is not really a risotto, since it is made with risoni, a rice-shaped pasta. Queso de Cabra is Goat's Cheese and this is a creamy, rich dish which has the slight tang which I love from goat's cheese. Only a few spoonfuls, but absolutely packed with flavour and creamy deliciousness.

I had a wonderful time in San Sebastian, next stop Madrid.