Parque Casa de Campo

Some friends and I took a trip to Casa del Campo, a large park in the very west of Madrid. When we go to the park I was underwhelmed. We may have been in a desert: dust everywhere, dust covered trees, dusty paths, dust clouds. The point I'm making is that it wasn't green and luscious like one expects when hearing the word "park." 

We ended up getting extremely hungry while walking around this dust bowl and when we arrived at a small lago (lake) there were a bunch of restaurants surrounding the outside of it. We stopped in at one and when we asked for a menu the waiter shot us a dirty look and came back about 10 minutes later with one menu for the three of us. Apparently we were supposed to have memorized the menu. I looked at the menu and the decision for me was simple: chorizo frito. That's right, fried chorizo. 

I have not met anyone who does not like crispy, spicy, greasy, chorizo. If you don't like it, don't tell me. But seriously, seeing fried chorizo on the menu nearly made me start salivating right there. The waiter delivered a decently sized shallow bowl piled high with delicious, hot, crunchy, and damn near perfect nuggets of chorizo. Spicy, salty, hints of a slight smokiness, it was heaven. My mouth is watering right now while writing this, as sick as that sounds.

Ah...prettier than Monet

My friend ordered a tortilla espanola. A favorite among the Spaniards it is simply a large mass of potato and egg. Generally boring, this one lived up to the expectation. HOWEVER! Guess who was there to rescue it? Chorizo grease!! Not even the actual sausage, the grease. Sopping up some of the yummy grease drippings with the mundane egg-potato mixture transformed it into, well...a sponge and vessel for the worth-its-weight-in-gold-grease. 

Note the red stains of chorizo grease

Ignore the butchering, it is not indicative of how I actually cut food

Final Grade: A. Yes, an A. Some small, mediocre restaurant next to a cheesy little lake can serve me a simple bowl of fried chorizo and I will go crazy. The tortilla can be damned, but it did serve a purpose. We split the check and for €6,00 I got the best meal I've had in Madrid thus far (except for the big review coming up, I'm just building the hype now). Definitely worth the long Metro ride and the dusty trails.