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.