Madrid: Mercado San Miguel

Without a doubt our favorite place in Madrid was Mercado San Miguel, one of the oldest covered markets in Madrid. This renovated market was surprisingly modern, clean and filled with all sorts of wonderful foodstuff and tapas.

After our dinner at Restaurante Botin we walked along this street and was surprised to find the market just a few minutes away. We didn’t even plan to go there on our first night but the lure of more food was irresistible.

On the way to the market we passed by this popular tapas place called TragaTapas which had a promotion for San Miguel beer. Is this the same as our own San Miguel beer? The logo on the bottle looked the same.

We saw a lot of branches of Museo del Jamon around the city.

The first stall I saw when I went in the market was this one selling different variations of bacalao (salted cod) tapas.

Ham, ham, ham!!!

We couldn’t decide what to try and buy so we ended up not getting any. We did try their free sample of Jamon Iberico Belota ham. Yum!!!

Majority of the tapas were on bread and were cold. You could literally treat the market as one big tapas buffet and try as many or as little as you desire.

I was impressed with this hi-tech digital weighing scale at the fruit stand. We won’t see anything like this in our markets that’s for sure.

olives

cheese

The cheese stand had their own all cheese tapas too.

nuts and dried fruit

I wish I tried the chicharon ( fried pork rind) made from Jamon Iberico.

This stall also sold potato chips fried in olive oil.

Rochelle and I tried the Pastoret yogurt in the glass jar and it instantly became my favorite yogurt while I was in Spain. They had unique flavor combinations like coconut & pineapple, banana candy milk and green lemon which we bought.

This was the section when I began to feel faint. My eyesight hazed and my heart went aflutter.

I knew I wanted dessert after dinner but how the heck was I supposed to choose from all these goodies? Those chocolate covered palmiers were taunting me again.

I did consider those super cookies but I deemed it too safe and boring.

I ended up buying an almond florentine cookie. Good choice if I may say so.

almond florentine

Arabic sweets

If tapas aren’t enough then there were also fresh seafood available.

oysters

fresh seafood

This monkfish was really huge.

fresh artisinal pasta

Since it was summer it was still really sunny at 9:28 pm.

The next day we went back for lunch and this time we knew what we wanted to try.

This was the only seating area in the market. It was not enough and we had to look for an alternative area to stand and eat.

We went straight to the paella stall for a small tapa portion of paella which we shared. It was a bit firm and oily for my taste but it wasn’t too bad.

Next we had a couple of bacalao on melba toasts and foie gras topped with cheese. I wish we could have eaten more but I was still full from our hearty breakfast buffet at our hotel.

I also had a glass of what I thought was lemonade but it was heavily spiked. I think it was white sangria but this stall called it Limonada Madrid.

Limonada Madrid 4€

While we were eating we met a young Filipino guy who was also traveling around Spain and this was what he ate. The white spaghetti like thing on the left was actually angulas (baby eel) which Rochelle had been wanting to try but was scared she wouldn’t be able to finish it. The guy was nice enough to let her try a little bit. He even offered us some ham. He told us that Mercado San Miguel was much nicer and cleaner than La Boqueria market in Barcelona.

I thought I had enough food sightings for the day but my feet led me into this pretty pasteleria near the market.

I gave in and bought a couple of marzipan is a favorite of mine.

Here’s something we Filipinos are very familiar with – lenguas de gato and barquillos. Looking at the food and pastries around Madrid made me realize how ingrained Spanish food is in our culture. I don’t speak much Spanish having failed my Spanish subjects in Ateneo (¡perdón! Señor Prado) yet I didn’t have a hard time understanding the names of the food and that’s the most important thing.

Mercado San Miguel
Plaza de San Miguel, s/n, 28005, Madrid Spain
telephone: 915-424-936