Leaving the Palace made me stunned with both beauty and hunger after hours of no food since the meal on the plane. So, it's finally time to get on with the first real traditional Spanish dinner tonight!
Hello everybody! It's good to be back in the Foodie Bee Hive Community 😄 This time I combined this food post into my first 2 travel posts, namely Part I : Me and My Misty Madrid Debut and Part II : Exploring the Royal Splendor Inside the Palacio Real de Madrid. For me, there's no real traveling until I get my hands (or in this case my tongue) on what's famous locally.
Now, let's start with
🍴 the Restaurant 🍴
Only around 10 minutes (in the rain) from the Palacio Real de Madrid, we arrived at our dinner place called "Dudua Palacio", which has been around since 1975. Oohh~ I'm hyped not only for how long it's open but for the windy rainy evening and I desperately needed to get inside.
Inside the restaurant it's mostly dark green with warm and cozy stone walls, decorated with several paintings.
after taking off our Asian's 10 layers of useless warm clothes in a heated room, we finally sat down at our table. In which, very strangely I found all the seats and tables are so small! Like, are you guys, Europeans able to sit and dine here? We are Asians and we barely fit in there.
The time has come for...
🍽 the Appetizer 🍽
Right away, the restaurant prepared the soup and the famous Spanish Ham for us. Bring it on!
🍽 the Vegetable Soup 🍽
This is perfect for the cold and shivering weather like this. A soup! This might not be anything too special, but a normal warm and homey is just what my body needed. It was vegetable soup with short pasta noodles (?).
One thing I thought to myself as I tasted the soup was that it was quite "salty". That's when I reminded myself "We're definitely not in Thailand anymore, Toto"
FYI: Thai people prefer a sweeter flavor kind of food, and that goes for every meal too.
🍖 Spanish Ham – Jamon Iberico 🍖
I've been trained and told over and over that I NEED to try the Ham aka Jamón 100% Ibérico de Bellota. They served us a plate of ham for each one of us. Before I tell you what I thought about it, I've got to tell you why it's special
Jamón 100% Ibérico de Bellota is the pride of Spain. Jamón is Ham and Ibérico is the Iberian pigs, that were bred in 100% free range and only eat acorns (Bellota).
The guide explained to us that feeding the pigs only acorns would make their meat sweet, salty, and especially nutty. The Ham was made from their hind legs, which will be smoked and cured to be served to us.
Two surprisingly impressive factors that I read about the Ibérico Ham are (1) They keep the pigs very healthy, by breeding them free-range, the pigs get to run up to 10 km per day. So, they are actually quite athletic. Another thing is (2) by feeding them these acorns, makes the fat actually considered "good fat", Some even called Iberic pigs `walking olive trees’ or ‘olives with legs’ because their fat is nearly as healthy as extra virgin olive oil.
When I put the Jamón Ibérico in my mouth... All the tensions and the wait built up to this moment and I find it was just delicious 😇. It was really really good. Maybe a little salty for my taste, but I completely understand why it was so famous. Their details in the making to create this wonderful ham are neither overrated nor underrated. It was just right.
I can't help but keep saying the word "delicious" repeatedly as I get handed more and more plates of Jamón Ibérico. It was truly a feast of Jamón Iberico that night, whic I had absolutely no problem eating those with bread and beer and I can finally say to myself "I'm definitely in Spain" 😂
Me and my family enjoying a traditional Spanish dinner together 😋
🍽 The Main Dish 🍽
🍴 The Steak with fries 🍴
Being very very hyped with the ham, the main dish left me a little less impressed with the looks, however, it was a good pork steak, without much sauce, but still lovely. The fries were just as salty enough and went really well with the steak. This one I get to eat one whole steak and a half from my dad. He didn't enjoy it as much as I did.
🍨 The Dessert 🍨
🍏 The apples 🍏
It's actually not a bad idea to just serve fruits for dessert. In Thailand, we also do that quite often. I think even more than serving actual dessert. My sister is the one who really digs this idea and asks for more apples to pack back at the hotel. The apples were crunchy. Just how I would prefer them.
After the 3-course meal, we put back our multilayered clothing and headed back outside. It was still raining, but if we just made it back to the car, we would be fine.
Here are some photos from the night in Madrid and this is where I parted with you. Thank you for stopping by and...
Let the food take you everywhere and stay hungry, fellow foodie
Khob khun kaa,
Nomnomnoodle 🍜