First was Can Chan Chan in Serrano and I should have known.
Stupid location, stupid website, did I say stupid location? It’s on top of a Corte Ingles which is just absurd. Glass fitting at 7, dinner at 8? Ridiculous. It’s also next to StreetXO (the sister bar of DiverXO, Madrid’s only 3* Michelin restaurant) which looked slightly cooler but being next to Can Chan Chan, also found itself on top of a Corte Ingles.
Was the food good at least? It was actually great Mexican, really sharp flavours and obviously high quality tortillas and meat, but I left having eaten like a dieting rabbit – two €14 tacos and a Paloma (also €14) that I didn’t order, making the €65 set menu look positively Oprah-ian (you have a taco, you have a taco!).
I liked the blue walls though and their website’s entertaining. An unusual terrace with guarded secrets… Sure mate. CanChanChan is your best friend, your sidekick, your accomplice… Is it?
Then a few days later it was Tropikal Luxury Buffet which was less bad. If you’ve guessed that Tropikal is a sushi place then you should have a word with yourself because what sort of name is that? Ridiculous, again. Perhaps I should pack in the writing and start consulting on restaurant names. Qualifications? Eyes, ears, general common sense. And Luxury Buffet? Does anyone believe self-proclaimed luxury? In fact, is the name itself dichotomous? Everyone knows that buffets are inherently and objectively bad outside of the hotel breakfast, and even then…
To be fair, we did go for the buffet so perhaps we can forgive them that part of the name. But I will die on my (Tropikal) hill, eating a mango, under a palm tree, sushi-less.
Unlike Can Chan Chan, however, the value was good, €32.95 for as much as you can eat, or free if you’re under three years old. Unfortunately, the waitress didn’t believe that we were under three years old and when we called the manager to argue (eloquently) that we were, in fact, infants (sipping on crisp Sapporo beer), she didn’t believe us either.
We made sure that they regretted denying us Child Menu Value by creating it ourselves. Especially Alex and Vincent. Being competitive and vindictive and then on top of it all, German, they consumed €95 of food each. The rest of us, not being German, were better guests.
First, alitas de pollo, rollitas vietnamita, mini pan chino, and gyozas. Then crazy salmon roll (crazy), dragon roll, maki volcano, futomaki, nigiri salmon, and nigiri pez mantequilla. And then finally and idiotically a salmon and avocado poke. It was good but I was full and mistaken in my belief that I’d get some help. I didn’t. We’re full, Alex and Vincent said, before ordering more.
Then we drank (mezcal like) sake and admired the explicit imagery of the sake carafes. We considered stealing them but settled for stuffing the still half full sake bottle in a pocket and left in a good mood. It’s a fun way of eating this, the buffet, and the food was absolutely fine. This is not a great restaurant though, and in Madrid of all places there are better ways of spending €40 a head.
So what to do to refind some faith? Easy. Go to Mercado De Los Mostenses off Plaza De España.
My roomate and I went on a Saturday. We had no plans other than to do the Bourdain thing, (go to Peru, tell them you know Peru).
We were thinking four courses, four stalls, four stories, chilli, laughter, ceviche, our own little whirlwind exploration. That didn’t happen though. We first tried to get an oyster from the Oyster Man but he was done for the day so we headed up to the first floor into a heady mix of Peruvian and Cantonese.
We sat at El Tinkuy. No reason. It could have been any of them, but maybe El Tinkuy felt a bit more substantial. It sort of had a space instead of the corridor and it sort of (I think?) had a coherent colour scheme going on. Whatever it had, it was good enough for us so we sat and picked at the corn (not popped, cancha it’s called) that they brought us. I love being brought things.
It was more colourful in Mostenses than outside. It was louder too. We liked it like that, a Saturday spent becoming the city as the city became us, partly. We ordered what we thought looked a lot like agua de jamaica but was actually cicha morada, a purple corn concoction which tastes like a colder, lighter mulled wine. Highly, highly refreshing. Then arroz con ternera (veal) which was, firstly, huge, and secondly not that interesting.
We thought we’d ordered something more ‘classic-y’ looking (having been done by the proximity of the words to an especially alluring photo) and so were surprised when the wok dish arrived. It was completely our fault – not wanting to spend too much time on the menu and betray our ignorance – and for a wok rice dish it was great – the meat was tender and tasty, the rice soy-ed and browned, and there were nice moments of onion and egg.
My second mistake was ordering first because my roommate ordered the same, leaving me with nothing more to write about. Plus, we were absolutely stuffed, so the Four Stall Whirlwind never exited the realm of enthralling possibility. That’s ok though. For the price of Tropikal I can go there 2.3 times. And for the price of CanChanChan I can go there 316.8 times. So, there’ll be a next time, and we’ll do it better.
Written by Barnaby Shand. Check out my Substack here.