A picture-free post to mark our transition from Madrid to Barcelona. Our last dinner was at a restaurant near the hotel, Cluny. Its proximity was a big bonus, since it was pouring all evening. Nice music, fun decor, a sort of modernized belle epoque look if that makes any sense. And the owner was very friendly, and treated us like house guests. Which in effect we were, since we were the only guests. I assumed its emptiness was due to the rain, but as I looked for it now on the internet it seems to have closed, so maybe it was normally empty. The menu was strange but quite good. I had a great first course of assorted flowers stuffed with foie gras, and a somewhat bland artichoke stuffed with spider crab as a main. Can't remember what Somchai ate, but we also had a great bottle of wine, and overall was a very mellow, enjoyable end to our Madrid trip. (Food-17, Decor-16, Service-19).

We had dinner at La Broche, probably Madrid's top restaurant, which is at the forefront of the foam revolution. The interior is dramatic, all white, with even the windows covered with white fabric so the only color in the whole room comes from the food. The chef, Sergi Arola, used to work at El Bulli outside Barcelona, usually voted the best restaurant in the world. Service is very competent, friendly but definitely maintaining a reverential attitude toward the food. Every aspect of the meal service has been rethought, like the bread service pictured here, really thin strips of crisp bread with various sauce options. We had the tasting menu, which was full of interesting twists and turns. He takes foams to the logical extreme, pictured here, since foams usually accompany the main food but he serves plates of foam alone. And the green soup dish is sure to be a stoli favorite, a hunk of sea urchin surrounded by algae with a dollop of green pea ice cream to finish it off. Somchai was universally wowed by the food, while I loved the inventiveness, but a couple of the dishes didn't quite work for me. This of course is to be expected at this kind of avant garde restaurant, so overall a very strong recommendation. (Food-19, Decor-16, Service-17).

Had dinner at the Bauza Hotel's restaurant. We got a quick look at the hotel on the way in, which is supposed to be Madrid's version of the Ian Shrager hotels, but at least at first glance it didn't seem to measure up. The restaurant was attractively minimalist, although Somchai thought it looked like a school canteen. I guess the schools in Thailand had much better cafeterias than we had in Monroe. Dinner started off great, I had the usual jamon seranno on an innovative olive oil bread,and Somchai loved his foie gras salad. My main course of cod with a peppery cheese sauce was a very strange combination that I thought was one of the best fish dishes I've had in a long while. I also had a very good chocolate dessert while Somchai had a wonderful Greek yogurt ice cream. We must have hit the kitchen on a very good night, because it was one of the best meals of the trip for me, but the place is pretty low profile. It was also almost empty while we were there, although at 8 pm most Spaniards were probably just finishing breakfast. (Food-19, Decor-15, Service-16).

We had dinner at Zalacain, a sort of stuffy traditional Basque restaurant that was the top fine dining spot in Madrid for many years until all the new wave foamy restaurants sprouted up. It's still very popular with the old society types and the Michelin reviewers. Service was flawless and very formal, the decor was odd as you can see, luxe but with some homey touches, plus it sprawled over several rooms so it had something of a country/rustic feel to it. Food was quite good. Somchai had a starter he loved, caviar and smoked salmon in aspic, aspic being de rigeur for any proper 1950's dinner party. We both chose fairly unadventorous main course, but everything was very well prepared. (Food-16, Decor-15, Service-17).

We returned to Madrid for dinner at Terraza del Casino. The building is a beautiful nineteenth century private club, and the acclaimed restaurant is the Madrid outpost of Spain's most famous chef, Ferran Adria. So we were expecting big things as we ascended to the top floor. The elevator opened, and we deflated a bit, as the soaring ceilings and elaborate detailing of the building were obscured by drab carpeting, beat up furniture and a dirty brown color scheme. The food, however, was excellent, really interesting ideas, some of which were too wacky but overall very enjoyable. We did a very long and elaborate tasting menu, which was too much for me to write down, so I only have the rating I gave it to attest to how much I liked it (Food-20, Decor-11, Service-16). Interestingly, as I was scouring the internet for photos of the place, I came across what looks to be a new design for the place. I've included photos of the old and new, but clearly the new looks much more interesting and more in keeping with the idea of the place. I also checked out the current menu, which includes such classics as Nitro-corn with foie gras air, cod intestines with curry, and a paella of Kellogg's corn flakes.

We had dinner at a restaurant near the hotel, the Balzac. It's supposedly a celebrity magnet, but as far as we could tell we were there on an off night. (Then again, our knowledge of Spanish celebrities doesn't extend much beyond Antonio Banderas and Penelope Cruz). It was a very handsome room, the best of our Madrid restaurants, and food was consistently high quality, though not particularly adventurous. My main course of pigeon and foie gras was particularly good, surprising because I usually find pigeon too gamey. Service was competent and friendly. (Food-16, Decor-17, Service-18).

One advantage of using Madrid as a base and making daytrips to surrounding places is that you can have dinner at great restaurants every night, rather than being stuck in a town like Toledo where you have to eat partridge all day. Tonight's dinner was at El Chaflan, in the far north of Madrid. Spanish food is at the forefront of the new wave of "molecular gastronomy", where food is run through a science lab and transformed into foams and gels and served in weird ways with complicated instructions. This movement was started by a restaurant outside Barcelona, El Bulli, which is regularly rated among the top few restauarants in the world. When we were in Spain, almost every restaurant was affected by this trend in some way, and El Chaflan was a major proponent of this in Madrid. The room itself was attractive, minimalist decor with a big open kitchen dominating the space. Service was prompt, but sullen and robotic, which was somewhat depressing since as usual we were the only customers. I say as usual because of the Spanish habit of eating exceedingly late, and the jetlagged tourist habit of eating early. Actually we aimed for 8 or 9 pm every night but it was several hours too early for most restaurants, which is a tough adjustment. Anyway, back to the food, it was excellent, and, for better or worse, nowhere near as strange as I'd hoped. Best dish of the night was a strangely spiced lamb and couscous dish, and lots of seafood that was uniformly tasty. The strangest dish of the night, and also one of my favorites, was the beef ice cream with lettuce sauce. (Food: 19, Decor: 15, Service: 10)

We had dinner at Santceloni, located in the modern part of the city, about a twenty minute cab ride from our hotel. It's in the Hotel Hesperia, which looks like a pretty nice boutique hotel, at least from the thirty seconds we spent walking through it to the restaurant. Santceloni has two Michelin stars, and is the Madrid outpost of Can Fabes, one of the world's most famous restaurants outside of Barcelona. The restaurant is remarkably spacious, beautifully lit and really quite a different atmosphere from any other place we went to in Madrid. Service was fantastic, friendly but extremely knowledgeable and enthusiastic about their jobs. We had the special market menu, which was course after course of really interesting, tasty dishes. It also meant that we had no idea what was coming, since it was dependent on whatever the chef found in the market that day. Spain's cuisine is very much in the spotlight now, and well known for all sorts of avant garde experimentation. Santceloni's not about that, but nor is it traditional Spanish food either. It's just very inventive food combinations, skillfully prepared and presented. The restaurant's signature dish is a cold poached egg with caviar and cauliflower puree, which I actually found a bit dull. But there was a great lobster dish, some nice frogs legs, which I usually resist but Somchai devours whenever he can, and sweetbreads, which I ate for the first time and really enjoyed. I feel a bit gross about it now since as I'm writing this I just had glands taken out of my throat, which is what sweetbreads are, but at the time, I was really pleasantly surprised. An even bigger surprise though, was Somchai's violent reaction when he learned what he was eating, since I thought he would pretty much eat anything. So after the sweetbreads encounter he pretty much hated the restaurant, but I ignored his feelings because they're biased. (Food-18, Decor-17, Service-19). Also we had a great bottle of Priorat with our dinner. That's a pretty well known wine now but at the time, was more of a cult wine, totally overshadowed by Spain's most famous wine, Rioja. It was my first bottle from that region, and really enjoyed it, much more mellow and balanced than Rioja, so we ended up drinking lots of it during the rest of our visit.

We doubled back to the plaza for lunch at the Cafe del Oriente, an old, atmospheric cafe that's popular with tourists during the day and locals at night. We stuffed ourselves with a huge plate of Somchai's favorite food in the whole world, jamon serrano, and another plate of Spanish cheese, washed down with a bottle of Cava, Spain's verison of champagne.