Let’s start off with, I love Spanish food. My favorite restaurant is Harvest Vine, so I was excited to hear about a Chico Madrid, a spanish cafe, for a casual lunch. (I’ve already been to Aragona – more on that another day). They have red and white sangria on tap and they pull a delicious house-made chocolate syrup mocha and house-made vanilla syrup latte. The Black Night ordered a second mocha while we were there, and he used to be a barista – that’s serious. I could have just had those two drinks and it would have been my favorite coffee shop – they serve cafe Vita, if you’re curious.
The Black Night and I split two sandwiches:
Bonito bocadillo – the spanish version of a tuna sandwich, includes preserved lemons for a very submline pickled flavor and pickled onion.
Jambon y queso – ham and cheese with quince paste, although I think I missed the quince paste… on airy toasted columbia city bread, I was a happy princess.
This is a tapas sandwich bar. You should order multiple dishes to share as these as small plates. Both sandwiches that we had were amazing, simple standout ingrediants without being too heavy and just different enough to make them intriguing. They do have other mousses and pates on the menu. I plan on going back to order the cheese plate and the cured meat platter. And another latte, even though coffee doesn’t go with cheese or cured meats (how many times do I have to tell myself that?). They do have a toast covered with chocolate and drizzled with olive oil. I wonder how that compares with the chocolate truffle salt toast at Ocho? This is going to be my spanish version of Cafe Presse and I can’t wait to go back.
SUMMARY
Overall: happily ever after
Highlights: house-made syrups for coffees, sandwiches
Footnotes: they are open late (until 11pm) and have a full list of spanish wines; the staff is extremely friendly and helpful, it’s tucked away in the neighborhood of Capital Hill so it’s a little quieter
