Taste

This morning I found just the sort of place I needed for breakfast. The cafe had little single occupancy tables in the windows, at which I could set up my laptop and tap away, knowing that I wasn’t taking up a table that could be accommodating a couple or multiples. They even had free wifi! I ended up spending two hours there, leaving only when the afternoon lunch rush seemed to be picking up.

It helped that the food was delicious. The menu was in Spanish but I could understand enough to think this might be good. It was roasted baby leeks and red capsicum tapenade with a fried egg, herbs and basil oil.

I followed up with an intriguing beverage, which was a mad combination of tonic water, rosemary, orange peel and a shot of espresso, served over ice.

It was odd, but it wasn’t bad, and I’d drink it again.

With a bit of a loose end day, I visited the cathedral next to the royal palace and admired its vividly painted ceilings.

Then I walked through just a corner of the massive semi-wild park that dominates the western side of the city, which is so huge that any part of it almost feels like a secret, since there are only ever a few people in sight. The section I walked through was planted with apple trees, just starting to fruit, but I couldn’t tell if they were crabapples or real apples.

I also finally tracked down the site of this beautiful varicoloured dome, which I’d glimpsed from all over the city but had never been able to get a solid photo of it.

As evening closed in I visited another bar on my list, the Ficus Bar in Chueca. The cocktail I had there, the Aztec Smoke, was one of the most amazing drinks I’ve ever had: smoky, sweet, chilli and fruity, all at the same time. When the barman who invented it asked me how it was, and I gushed about how much I loved it, he was so happy he almost couldn’t speak.

It was a lovely bar, and the only downside to my visit was having to listen to the American Millennial at the next table talking endlessly about herself, and how she’s taking time for herself after her breakup, and how she’s grown so much following the breakup, with very occasional encouragement from the Spanish guy she’s with who’s trying to get into her pants.

“We were bonded by trauma,” she stated, in all seriousness. “It wasn’t sexual chemistry, it was addiction.”

It was quite appalling to witness, although, to be fair, you have to admire someone who can communicate entirely in ‘Eat Pray Love’ cliches.

But I couldn’t hang around watching this relational disaster unfold. I had tickets to another jazz performance a few minutes away. At the Recoletos Jazz Bar there was an altogether older vibe, which included the music before the performance, which was old Bee Gees songs reinterpreted as smoky R&B duets. It was a red velvet curtains, little table lamps, ancestral wealth kind of place.

Unfortunately the performances were more cruise ship than Blue Note. Don’t get me wrong; it’s one of the better cruise ships. One of those ones that doesn’t allow children, or the French. But it wasn’t up to the quality of Central Cafe, and frankly not even up to the standards of Perth’s Ellington Jazz Club.

However their Louis Armstrong-inspired, swinging version of ‘La Vie En Rose’ which won over both me and the crowd was, I have to admit, pretty cool.

I ended my evening at Alchemist 1967, with The Avenue, a classic cocktail whose ingredients I don’t remember, thanks to the influence of my previous two cocktails. But it was peachy, and sweet without being cloying. I accompanied it with pinchos of anchovies on a very light brie and toast, which, like all Spanish food, was superb.