Dinner Experience #1 in Madrid

Tonight we tried to find some good tapas, but after wandering around 3 blocks, we decided we would give up trying to understand tapas menus/bars and just picked a place that had a “menu del dia” that was translated into English and looked pretty decent. 

For those of you who don’t know, most restaurants in Spain have what’s called a menu del dia (menu of the day) where you get an appetizer, an entree, a dessert, and a beverage for a fixed price.  At this place we tried, the menu of the day was 8.50 euro and included wine.  When both of us chose white, the waiter brought an entire bottle of white wine and put it on our table!  We weren’t sure if the whole bottle was included or if we were just supposed to take a glass, but in the end we finished half the bottle and the bill did not have a charge for the wine!

Even though the menu was translated into English, the waiter turned out to speak or read no English whatsoever so I had to order off the Spanish side of the menu and, as a result, we weren’t sure we had ordered the right thing because the Spanish side seemed to have a longer list of entrees.  Either way, the food turned out to be decent, and you really can’t beat the price.  Paul had some sort of scrambled eggs with beans dish for his appy, and what we think was veal chops for his entree, and a fruit salad for desert.  I had chicken noodle soup as an appy, pork chops with egg for my entree, and creme caramel for desert.

Still nothing that wows us, but at least the taste was decent, we had some ok wine and maybe tomorrow we’ll find tapas?