Stumbled Upon a Tapa Tour

During the tour

Saturday evening we decided to go out for tapas and cañas since we had to make a trip downtown to drop off Pablo's work car at the garage. From there we decided to walk around and stop at any cute bars we found. In Spain it isn't hard to find a bar. There is one probably every 5 store fronts. Good for us!
This neighborhood was new for us so we didn't really know where to go but knew there was an areas of bars grouped together because we had seen them a few weekends ago when we were there for a going away party. We stopped in the first bar and had a quick caña (small beer) and tapa, then stopped at one right next door. We needed a couple quick beers before we started really walking and hunting for good places. The third bar we stopped in was very typical spanish, hams hanging from the ceiling and all, and if its cute I want to go in, good thing we did because this is where we found the "De Tapas por Madrid" the tapa tour. There were a bunch of fliers on the table so we picked one up and learned that 50 bars in the area were participating in the tapa tour, which was, each bar served a special and fancy tapa along with a beer for 2.40 euros. At each bar you get a stamp and vote on each tapa giving it a rating from 1-3. The flier had a map and we realized we were right in the middle of a group of bars participating. Our satuday night of grabbing a few beers and tapas now had turned into the best night ever! This is my very favorite thing about Spain (besides Pablo of course!) tapas! And now I get fancy and cheap tapas with beer! It doesn't get any better than this!
The first bar we started the tour at was called Meson del Paleto and the tapa was a meatball on a piece of bread with a salsa on top. It was very good!

#1

The second bar we stopped at was La Birreria and the tapa was chicken wrapped in bacon! Yum!

#2

The third bar was Mala Madrid and the tapa was a whole tomato stuffed with salmonrejo (which is a thick tomato soup) This one was our least favorite probably because the tomato didn't have much flavor and was hard.

this is the point we started taking pictures for the blog!

The fourth bar was Meson Cubano and the tapa was chicken, onion and peppers in a sauce of soy, mint and lemon on a piece of bread with banana chips. This one was one of our favorite tapas!

#4

The fifth bar was the Taberna de Quevedo and the tapa was pate of blood sausage and red and green peppers. It sounds really gross but it one of my favorites!

#5

The sixth bar was Paulino de Quevedo and the tapa was sepia croquets with aoli sauce. Sepia is the cousin of squid. It sounds gross but it didn't taste fishy at all and was really good.

#6

The seventh and final bar was La Huerta del Cinca and the tapa was squash topped with goat cheese and an anchovy. This one was good since I love goat cheese. I took off the anchovy but there was still the taste so it kind of ruined it for me but Pablo loved it.

#7

As we walked around from bar to bar we realized that this neighborhood had a lot of great bars. Every bar we went to for the tour we'd go back because they were all really nice and the ones we saw that didn't participate were really cool too. The neighborhood isn't i the center so its more "spanish" and its an older crowed, as in people our age, and the bars have tables and chairs so you can sit and relax and enjoy, which is what I look for these days! I think we are going to make this our new going out area and isn't as far from our house as the center is.
Overall the tapa tour was very fun. Dad and Jeanne we both said too bad you guys aren't here because you would of loved it!
We ran into a few bars that ran out of tapas and were too crowded to enter into so we had to pass on some but hopefully we can do it again next year. This was the second annual and hopefully there will be many more!