The great flamenco misadventure. April 17, 2008

Cardamomo the book said. Real authentic flamenco, nae pish mind, just Spanish folk having some drinks and getting into the music. Sounded good, so we decided to form a holding pattern round about it until it opened and busied up a wee bit. We had dinner in pretty rowdy pub with a huge party of shitfaced Erasmus students at the back. We had potatoes in two sauces (one was tomate frito, the other, garlicky sour cream) and ‘grilled chicken’. In all honesty, we weren’t quite expecting ‘a grilled chicken’, just some. Portions were massive, and cheap as patatas fritas. Though it didn’t sell itself as a restuarant and we expected to just have a nibble, we were both quite pleasantly surprised.

After dinner we head down past Cardamomo again and saw that it was dead, having just opened. No way were two peely-wally tourists going to be the first in there! We’ll let the local aficionados in first, then we can worry about that. We went to a place on Prado St, where we had a lovely glass of wine and a squizz at the Spanish Cup final that was on the telly. Afterwards, we passed the flamenco place again, still dead, so our arms were twisted into continuing our crawl. We ended up in a crackin wee pub where we got another wine and feasted our eyes on the beautiful pintxos that were on the counter. Just having eaten, we didn’t bother with them, but it was a chore. Valencia had just gone 2-0 against local favourites Getafe. We both quite like the place, but unfortunately, the Spanish smoking ban isn’t quite as extensive as at home, and we found ourselves beset on all sides by the iniquities of people with cigarettes. Eyes nipping, we made a break for it.

We then made our final sweep of the flamenco gaffe. Horror of horrors - was there not a 30-strong party of bum-bag wearing guiris in brightly coloured clothing lining up outside. They were interrogated, then ushered inside by the baw-bag of a bouncer, while he went on to ask some others outside when they were free to come back - maybe next week? Unwilling to face the indignity of similar, having been through it too many times outside Hamilton Palace in my youth (Gill wants it noted that she never faced such at Hamilton Palace or elsewhere [except maybe this one time outside the Garage {but she just changed coats with her pal and went back later and it was fine «thank goodness for multiple brackets!»}]) Anyway, we digress. Rather than flamenco, the sound system of Cardamomo was polluting the street with naffer than naff South American Europop (if such a thing is possible). We took stock of the situation, and decided that Cardamomo could away and raffle.

So we decided to go back to the pub, heading over to La Latina like we did last night. It had been raining slightly, and we got the impression that the city that doesn’t sleep was in its bed - cafes had their tables pulled in before 11pm, and a lot of places were dead, shutting, or shut. We managed to fit in a couple of drinks in a couple of places, but I think we’d had enough. It’s a long day you know! We weren’t sure if it was a Wednesday thing, or if last night was a Tuesday thing, or whether the rain is to Madrid innkeepers what snow is to Scotrail trains, but it was a deeply puzzling experience.

Gill wants it known for the record, that she still has not got her dress. Could be a long wait!