{"id":73,"date":"2007-04-08T18:12:59","date_gmt":"2007-04-08T23:12:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kuma2.net\/skyeview\/?p=73"},"modified":"2007-04-09T05:37:09","modified_gmt":"2007-04-09T10:37:09","slug":"eating-out-in-madrid%e2%80%a6uhh-dining-out-in-madrid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.kuma2.net\/skyeview\/?p=73","title":{"rendered":"Eating Out In Madrid\u2026Uhh, Dining Out in Madrid"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"honey.jpg\"This month\u2019s return trip to Madrid is a welcome change of pace. Last spring I traveled to Barcelona and Madrid on the heel of the Asia trip. It was a nice change of climate, atmosphere, and culture\u2014not better, just different after the intensity of Asia and tiresome iffy Bay Area weather. This trip is shorter and my work commitments are less demanding, so hopefully I\u2019ll have an opportunity to explore and sightsee.<\/p>\n

At the top of my list is a visit to Lavapi\u00e9s<\/a>. I missed this neighborhood on my last visit. Lavapi\u00e9s is home to various ethnic communities and lesbians\u2014which means what, readers?\u00a0 Lesbians of color!\u00a0 Hopefully, I will be able to find food more palatable and lighter than the high caloric and meat heavy diet of typical Spanish fare<\/a>. Not only is the food heavy, but folks in Madrid and perhaps other parts of Spain too, dine late. If someone informs you they will pick you up for dinner the earliest you will see your host is 9:00-9:30 pm.<\/p>\n

In preparation for this trip, I asked my colleague to please leave my evenings free. He agreed, but reminded me how late night dining, conversation and drinking wine are such an integral part of social life in Madrid. He wrote: \u201cYou must live the night life, Skye!\u201d\u00a0 And, indeed I will\u2014nightlife with my folks, food in moderation and less of an assault on my digestive system.<\/p>\n

Last year, I was invited to join a group of Fulbright Scholar alumni for a monthly guest speaker\u2019s series; the participants met afterwards in a private room at a restaurant for post-talk discussion with the speaker. I didn\u2019t particularly want to be at this function, but I was invited as a special guest and felt it would have been impolite to decline the invitation. Fortunately, the host seated me between two American expats both white women, one a New York Times reporter who lived in Madrid with her husband, the other another New Yorker and Madrid socialite.
\n
\n\"tapas.jpg\" The NYT reporter was very kind in her offer to explain to me the gist of the Spanish conversations that circulated around the table. She was most helpful when the food began to arrive at the table. Delicacies and special culinary treats that caused guests to ooo and ahhh as plate-after-plate of food were presented. I kept passing over the mostly pork and meat dishes in hopes of seeing a vegetable or seafood treat. If you want seafood in Madrid, you are most likely to be offered paella, a rice and seafood dish. At the risk of having my \u201cBlack\u201d card revoked, I must admit I don\u2019t\"paella.jpg\" fancy Louisiana style gumbo and I don\u2019t like paella<\/a> for the same reason\u2014both contain too much of a mismatch of ingredients for my taste. Yuh can just serve me a nice grilled, jerked, baked, stewed or fried fish\u2014keep it simple.<\/p>\n

Now, lest any of you have the idea that I am some kind of big time sophisticated traveler I will reveal my lack of sophistication at the restaurant. After several rounds of plates of \u201cappetizers\u201d I was beginning to wonder when the main course would be served. Well imagine my surprise when coffee and little plates of dessert were served signaling the near end of the dinner. It finally dawned on me that the dinner consisted solely of combined tapas<\/a> and multiple bottles of wine. In one way I was relieved that the dinner was coming to an end and I didn\u2019t have to keep making excuses for passing over the Spanish equivalent of blood pudding or some other equally ghastly concoction. On the other hand, I was mildly disappointed that I didn\u2019t get to explore the full menu.<\/p>\n

One thing I can say for certain about social interactions and my initial impressions in Barcelona and Madrid is that folks take the evening meals and hanging out with friends and family seriously. I can also say that I was pleasantly surprised by the general congeniality of strangers. I had heard so many negative things about how formal Madrile\u00f1os are and how anti-immigrant sentiments directed at African immigrants<\/a> who reach the Canary Islands appear to be on th rise. Frankly, I had my guard up and didn\u2019t know what to expect.<\/p>\n

Well, I am back this week for another taste test of Madrid.<\/p>\n

Stay tuned for dispatches:
\nfrom Madrid
\n\"madrid.jpg\"<\/p>\n

and Oporto, Portugal
\n\"ruelle_portugal.jpg\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This month\u2019s return trip to Madrid is a welcome change of pace. Last spring I traveled to Barcelona and Madrid on the heel of the Asia trip. It was a nice change of climate, atmosphere, and culture\u2014not better, just different after the intensity of Asia and tiresome iffy Bay Area weather. This trip is shorter […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-73","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-travelogues"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1c8Xx-1b","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kuma2.net\/skyeview\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kuma2.net\/skyeview\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kuma2.net\/skyeview\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kuma2.net\/skyeview\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kuma2.net\/skyeview\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=73"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.kuma2.net\/skyeview\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kuma2.net\/skyeview\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=73"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kuma2.net\/skyeview\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=73"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kuma2.net\/skyeview\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=73"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}