Madrid, Día 2

Breakfast:

Oatmeal w/apple slices topped w/Greek yogurt & strawberry chunks

Snack (bought from La Cure Gourmande, Madrid, Spain):

Mantecado tradicional con zumo de limon natural y canela, galleta crujiente con escenica de almendra
Traditional shortbread w/natural lemon juice and cinnamon, crunchy biscuit with almond essence
(The lemon almond cookie was delicious for two bites and then it started tasting like a lemon-flavoured block of creamed sugar. I think it took me almost three hours to finish that cookie and I fell into a sugar coma while eating it, but I definitely enjoyed the potent flavours. If it had tasted like butter and sugar, I'm pretty sure I would have just tossed it away. I really enjoyed the almond cookie though; it resembled a biscotti in hardness but shortbread in texture. The best part was that it wasn't very sweet at all and would have been the perfect complement to some tea or coffee.)

Lunch:

Salad w/cherry tomatoes, feta cheese & black pepper

Snack at a paella stall in Mercado de San Miguel, Madrid, Spain:

Paella de verduras 
(Essentially vegetable paella that tasted like Asian fried rice. I was not a fan because it was super oily and tasted worse than some of the really good fried rice dishes I've had in the past. Perhaps I should have gotten the seafood or chorizo paellas, but I don't eat sausage/hot dogs of any kind and I'm picky about my seafood. Thao had the seafood one and she said the flavour wasn't very potent, so it's probably just the vendor.)

Thao's tapa from a tapas stall in Mercado de San Miguel, Madrid, Spain:

Thao's gulas tapa
(We went back to Mercado de San Miguel just so Thao could try this. It's made from pollack using an "ancient technique from Japan" called surimi and the description says, "white fish with the texture of the elver, to which is added its shape, colour, flavour and aroma". No idea what it tasted like and personally looks way too wormy for me, but Thao says that it was like eating cold noodles. I just thought that I should post a picture of a tapas while I'm in Spain to make my food diary/blog seem more legitimate.) 

Snack:

Apple

Dinner at La Biotika - Ecotienda & Restaurante Macrobiotico-Vegano, Madrid, Spain:

Sopa de miso 
(We went to this vegetarian/vegan place with a Menú del Día that looked quite delicious! I had the miso soup, which had a random assortment of veggies but no noodles. It would have been perfect had it been less salty.)

Thao's sopa crema de verduras (had a spoonful)
(I quite liked this. Very light and flavourful - not really what I expected from a cream of vegetables soup.)

Ensalada Biotika 
(There was some kind of creamy sauce that was a bit zesty. I initally liked it but it became overwhelming. The rest of the salad was delicious though; I prefer eating salads without dressing and actually tasting the veggies.)

Plato macrobiotiko - vegana: lentejas castellanas estofadas, arroz tres colores con alga cochayuyo, zanahorias al jengibre
(I ordered the vegan option and while I have no idea what the random sauces were, the plate included carrots and green beans cooked in some kind of oil, lentils and tricoloured rice with sunflower seeds. Very fulfilling and satisfying overall, but I wish there had been more carrots and less rice.)

Thao's plato vegetariana: bolonesa con soja texturizada, pastel de colores con alino de albahaca, potatas al horno con coliflor
(I didn't try this, but Thao seemed to like everything! Her vegetarian plate featured a soy spaghetti bolognese, some sort of pesto-esque pasta and potatoes and cauliflower in some sort of sauce.) 

Te kukicha, bizcocho de chocolate con naranja
(The Spanish really like their chocolate and orange, and I am not complaining. This was rather sweet, but the potency of the flavours cannot be beat! I have never tasted such a strong orange essence in a dessert before and the dark chocolate complemented it perfectly!)

Thao's bizcocho de algarroba (harina de arroz)
(Thao and I both couldn't figure out what algarroba was because her Spanish-German translator said it was a Johannisbrotbaum, and we were both confused on why a tree was a cake flavour. Note that "baum" means tree in German. It looked like chocolate and tasted similar to chocolate, but it wasn't quite chocolate. Plus, the texture of the cake was on the grainy side so that made it hard to guess the actual flavour as well. Anyway, the waiter recommended this after we learned that they didn't have the flan anymore and I am so glad she got it! In fact, I think I ate the majority of this cake because it was that good. The cake was very moist and perfectly lightly sweetened, even though there's supposed to be no sugar, dairy and something else we couldn't translate in this cake. However, we later found out this was a carob cake - so the chocolate-esque taste and sweetness made sense.)