Botin: Good food or Great Food?

So as I mentioned yesterday, we went to Botin last night and I have to admit I was blown away by the food. I don´t usually wax poetic about food, being the sort that thinks that if it satifies then it was a good meal. This however was a whole nother experience.

One walks into the place and starts the see what the fuss is all about. Directly accross the first floor is the wood burning grill is located and  you immediately get a whiff of the porky goodness that is being prepared in the kitchen. Its small, with tables spread around into every space they could fit them while at the same time making it feel not crowded. We walked up 3 flights of stairs and could feel the history and the countless others who had done the same over the past 3 centuries. They have a special menu, this being May they call it their summer menu, that is 45 euro and is comprised of a first, which in this case was gaspzacho. The second is their specialty which is a roast suckling pig that is cooked whole and in its juicies. Then there is a desert of choice and it comes with bread and wine. All in all its a great value but seeing as I like my soups not as cold as a refreshing beer, I chose the other dish of the house, the roast baby lamb and split an order of cheese with one of my classmates. I´m not a foodie or anythign so its hard to describe exactly how everything tasted but I´ll sum it up with 4 words: It was damn good.

Today was rough as the effects of  no sleep are finally catching up to us. The relentless walking hasn´t helped the situation but its nice being able to walk from one location to other with the occasional hop on a very efficient metro system that has a stop 5 mintues from anywhere you´d want to go. This weekend is the festival of San Isidro here in Madrid. For my Barcelona friends its like La Merce´ so the whole not sleepign situation is not going to get better but it´ll be worth it. We are meeting with a group of students from the Polytechnic university of Madrid tonight and they are going to take us around the first day of activities.

Adeu,
Alan