February 25, 2008
Mangiamo 2007: El Brillante (Madrid)
On my way back to NY, I had a stop over in Madrid for a few hours. Marta and Jose whisked me from the airport to take me to a dream lunch of my favorite Madrileño dish- Bocadillo de Calamares. Basically, a sandwich filled with fried calamari. GENIUS!!! It truly is a priceless invention- nothing could quite quantify how happy this makes me. El Brillante, above, is famous for this dish, although you can find it at any bar in Madrid, more or less. But El Brillante’s tagline is “Los mejores calamares de Madrid”- translation: the best calamari in Madrid. So you gotta go.
Fluffy bread filled with fried calamari, nothing else. It’s gorgeous.
Little squid, battered and fried. This wasn’t as good as I was hoping, but maybe that’s just cause I was in bocadillo heaven.
Can’t leave Madrid without having a proper tortilla!
A pint, a smoke, a Marta.
And that’s it- my trip to Italy and Spain in a nutshell. All good things come to an end, I suppose. Thanks for indulging me, and letting me go on about a trip I took months ago (I lost all my pics when my computer broke, I’m tellin ya!). I’m in California now- I’ll try to deliver my eats in REAL TIME- I promise.
El Brillante (3 locations)
Atocha, 122
Tel. 91 468 05 48
Eloy Gonzalo, 12
Tel. 91 448 19 88
Eta. Carlos V, 8
Tel. 91. 528 69 66
4 Comments
BREAD STUFFED WITH CALAMARI. It’s like someone read my mind!!! I DO want!
I was just telling a co worker about this place and had to look online to see if anyone else had the same impression. It's been ten years since I had their calamari sandwich — I was there in late 99 or 2000 — and I've never forgotten it. That perfect little loaf of fragrant french bread stuffed with that OMG chewy delicious and incredibly fresh calmari. Whew. I'm drooling all over my collar here. Gotta get back to Madrid and gorgeous sunny Spain. What an awesome country.
I went here on my last night in Madrid, October 2008! Pretty awesome.
*sigh* Looking at this post made me very reminiscent. I just came back from Madrid this Monday and …SIGH. Ugh I miss the food, I miss the food, I miss the food.