You can find Bonilla a la Vista potato chips probably in the Gourmet Experience, on the top floor of El Corte Inglés on Preciados, near the Puerta del Sol.
Thank you. We went to the basement for the grocery. We will also look for the Ortiz Ventresca on the top floor.
The El Corte Inglés Gourmet Experience (only 6 of these in the country), found on the top floor, has all the gourmet items and wines that one can imagine, the very best products produced in Spain. This all comes at a price, because shopping here can set you back a pretty penny, but it´s a sheer delight for browsing. There is a roof top terrace plus several eateries.
The supermarkets are for your normal everyday shopping.
Since you didn’t enjoy La Caníbal, you can find an authentic Galician restaurant with low prices (for Madrid) in your neck of the woods at Calle ;Humilladero. It’s XENTES. Unpretentious, lively, simple.
Most folks would say that Casa Dani is too heavy on the eggs (it is made with 8 eggs) , not the potatoes! The omelet is on the creamy side, but not quite the Betanzos version you’ll find at Taberna Pedraza and other places, that is quite liquid-y, with very runny eggs, 12 of them.
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Is there a place where they sell the brown “cazuela de barro” plates that the traditional restaurants use for gambas and other dishes? Do people use these at home?
Many places, like hardware stores and El Corte Inglés and hypermarkets. We have a collection of them at home.
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Thanks, do you know which El Corte Ingles building in Madrid has the housewares section for the cazuelo de barro? Is it the same building as the Gourmet Experience? Last time I was in ECI, we only saw clothes and fashion items.
The ECI Gourmet Experience is in. building 2 on Plaza de Callao 2. The supermarket is on level S-0 in building 1 on Calle Preciados 3.
The housewares (“hogar y decoración—cocina, baño”) are found on the 7th floor of building 2. Ask for “cazuelas de barro”. They’re cheap.
Carrefour also carries them, as do most hipermercados
https://www.elcorteingles.es/search-nwx/1/?s=cazuelas+de+barro&stype=typeahead_keywords_3
For our last day in Madrid, we ended up having steak for “merienda” at Askuabarra and a light dinner at Casa Alberto. Service was excellent at Askuabarra and the steak was good. At Casa Alberto, the highlight was the Pork Trotter with Tail Stew.The sauce was really well done, compared to all the rabo de toros we’ve had in the trip. I also enjoyed their Squid Ink with Rice.
We grabbed a few sandwiches from Hungry Club in the airport but those were generic.
I did discover the “bocadillo integral viruta 5 estrellas” in the Enrique Tomas store across our gate. Too bad we were flying out already, but I loved the viruta! Is this a common thing to have viruta sandwiches? Do a lot of people sell these? So odd I have not seen it before. I know it’s the trimmings, but the flavor is so good and complex, I am sorry I didn’t have it more during my trip.
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I’m glad you enjoyed your steak at Askuabarra. Their beef purveyors are the best, Discarlux.
How were your sandwiches from David Muñoz’s Hungry Club generic?
I just came back from Paris via Barajas T4 and passed by the Enrique Tomás.
I think the virutas 5 Estrellas is an exclusively a product of Enrique Tomás, whose presence these days is all over Madrid, other parts of Spain, Mexico and South America.
For little chunks of jamón ibérico, or as you mention “trimmings”, (virutas or taquitos) for cooking, we buy them from La Boulette at the Mercado de La Paz in the Salamanca district. They’re great for stews, guisos, especially for bean stews and lentils.
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I was expecting the Hungry Club sandwiches to be more innovative given the chef. But they were pretty straightforward and like any other sandwich you can find in the US. We got the brioche sandwich with ham, aged gouda, and truffle mayo, and it kinda just tasted like a Croque Monsieur. We also tried the toasted brioche bread sandwich with stracciatella, bacon, scrambled eggs, and pesto, and it just tasted exactly like what it sounded like.
So people do not usually use the “trimmings” for sandwiches? It’s an interesting take because it’s not “flat” like sliced jamon so there is a lot more texture.
I haven’t stopped in T4S to have anything at the Hungry Club, so I wondered about the type of sandwiches sold there, although I’ve read some reviews.
I wouldn’t expect the usual highly innovative cuisine of Dabiz there, as found at his other XO restaurants, as HC is dealing with a complete different potential clientele in its first airport outpost, I assume, and those with a very limited time to dine.
We use the taquitos (virutas) to prepare our platos de cuchara, guisos, primarily for seasoning.
Or… they can be added to salads as a topping, such as a spinach salad, or pasta, or used for toppings for the Cordoban salmorejo, vegetable bisques, used as an added ingredient to broken eggs, huevos rotos/estrellados or as an ingredient of creamy ham croquettes.
The virutas are not flat because they are cut from next to the bone, the zones closest to the bone where it’s impossible to extract flat slices (lonchas), thus their very concentrated, intense flavor.
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Ugh, I am disappointed to hear that the plague of the brioche sandwich has reached across the Atlantic. Or maybe it’s the other way around.
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Here in Madrid there are some places that have begun to make the classic sandwich mixto or as it’s known in Barcelona, the bikini, the much loved ham and cheese sandwich with brioche rather than pan de molde. I haven’t had one yet that I recall.
The very best bikini that I’ve had has been in the beautiful garden terrace of the Hotel Santo Mauro in the barrio de Almagro. The second best, or maybe tied for first, at the impossible-to-book except during Holy Week, July and August in the hip Los 33, in Salesas. Both sandwiches are “out of this world” good.
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Los 33 looks interesting and the photos I saw of the grilled dishes…mm!!
Is this a new restaurant? I guess that for one person it’s not ideal because of the large steaks. Possible to go for a bikini, maybe at lunch or between lunch and dinner? Their site says they are open straight through, but I wonder if that means that someone could go at 5pm(??).
Los 33 is from the same people that opened Charrua (another Uruguayan steak place). It’s now almost impossible to book although you will find some slot available for the exact day months ahead when it opens up. We went before it got hard to book. My understanding is that 33 became more of a place to see and be seen vs Charrua (if you read the reviews many feel like the host looks you over and makes a call on how to treat you based on that).
From a food standpoint, the menus from 2023 were quite similar and we didn’t notice any real difference, including the bikini (although this is not always available at Charrua). If you haven’t tried Charrua, it’s worth going. Make sure and get the Uruguayan sausage entrante.
We also went to Los 33 before it became impossible to book. We did receive a friendly welcome from a female hostess.
The bar seating isn’t reserved, and one can have the full menu seated at the bar. The trick is to go for lunch when it opens at 1 pm (be in line before) to grab a bar stool.
There are leather sofas to the left side of the bar in the front room, along with high tables and in the back, low tables, where we sat in the area of the open grill. The place is candlelit at night, when at 9 pm a DJ plays music (rather loud) from the owner’s vinyl collection. I believe it doesn’t close until 2 am (late night cocktails).
Los 33 was opened by Nacho Ventoso from Barcelona and Sara Aznar, whose mother, from Uruguay, was the original owner of El Viajero in La Latina. The couple designed it during the confinement months of the pandemic and decided to create a “gastronomic” bar like those they loved on their trip to Uruguay, which was then lacking in their neighborhood of Salesas.
They opened it in May of 2022 and it immediately took off.
The “place to be seated” is at the wood bench directly in front of the open grill.
It has indeed become a place to see and be seen and local celebrity filled. And it became even more impossible to book when it made the number 15 spot on The World´s Best steakhouse list. (El Capricho garnered the number 2 spot.) And this year Los 33 won the Metrópoli award for Restaurant Revelation of 2024.
What we liked on the menu: their grilled bikini of prosciutto, Havarti cheese and smoked butter, the empanaditas, the entraña, the choripán (chorizo criollo with lettuce on brioche). Their meat purveyor is Discarlux.
And it’s vegetarian friendly, serving calçots and Maresme tear peas in season, artichokes from Tudela, Navarran white asparagus, etc.
Argentinian and Uruguayan steak houses have become very popular here. A few more: Piantao, also in Salesas, Lana on Ponzano, La Cabrera on Velázquez, Fogata (formerly Fayer) on Orfila.
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