Tapas y Cañas

Apologies for the lack of updates here. I know you all hang on every word I write, so before everyone deserts me, here are a couple of posts. 

I was somewhat dragged to this place since I was in a larger group (8 people) and one of the votes was to go to a cheesy (no pun intended) looking pizza place or KFC....so the lesser of two evils landed me at a place called Tapas y Ca ñas. I had thought it sounded like a familiar name and I realized it's because there are about a hundred of them all over Madrid, aka a chain. Yes, another chain. I really need to stop traveling with large groups since it always gets me in trouble (food wise). 

The decor was perfect for a chain restaurant: three huge beer barrels on the ceiling, painted on bricks, marble tables, the whole nine yards. The menu at least had items like morcilla (blood sausage) and grilled octopus, but I should have known better. I ordered the grilled octopus with garlic oil and then I split an order of potatoes in a spicy tomato sauce. The octopus was decent enough. It was tender, it was edible, it was extremely greasy. Greasy is not a word one would associate with octopus. It was thin slices of octopus basically soaked in the garlic oil. Too much garlic oil, too little flavor in the octopus. Quite disappointing, but I guess I was expecting too much from the chain. 

No witty comment for this one. Just not worth it.

The potatoes were fried well, but the sauce they were swimming in tasted like a spicy tomato sauce straight from a Chef Boyardee can. I'm sure if you strained out the contents of one of  Chef's tomato-based products and added some heat and extra ketchup, you would end up with what I ate. 

Doesn't that just look toxic?

Can I recommend this to anyone? Well I could, but I will not under any circumstances subject people to this place. At €12,50 it was an extremely expensive meal for lower than mediocrity. 

Final Grade: D, perfectly edible if you enjoy sub-par food for mucho dinero (I'll do the translation for you: a lot of money). Moral of the story? Don't travel in big groups or go to chain restaurants.