As I continue working towards clearing my review queue from the hundred+ drafts I wrote when I was…read morein Spain/Portugal on vacation in January... if you're ever in Madrid and like cider and/or roast chicken, you *absolutely* have to make it slightly out of the way of downtown Madrid and come here (it's easy to get to by bus from downtown, but if you're a tourist and intend to see the Temple of Debod, it's also a quick, pretty walk from that park). No frills, but frills are entirely unnecessary with cider and food this good. They were busy, but they have tons of space, so there was no wait for a table - they also clearly have tons of waitstaff, as service was *absurdly* good, like, when we asked for bread, it showed up in like 30 seconds. When we killed the first order of cider and realized we needed another, another doble showed up in about a minute.
Food-wise, we tried: their chorizo, totally wonderful - I was expecting it to come swimming *in* cider like the previous cider-cooked chorizo we'd had at a different place yesterday; it is just one whole sausage on a plate. Really good sausage, though. Definitely tasted like it had been cooked in cider, i.e. delicious, though I wouldn't have *minded* if it were also swimming in it. The tuna empanada slice, the only thing I wasn't particularly impressed by. It was... ok. I'd had much better, that trip. It was also served cold, which I wasn't expecting (I feel like it probably would have been somewhat better heated, but regardless, I'd say it's one thing you should probably skip here.) And of course, the whole chicken they're most known for, so while I'm generally not a fan of whole bone-in chicken, we had to try it. I'm especially never a fan of drumstick meat, so I told my wife she could have both the drumsticks, after I ate one tiny bite to make sure. Well, there's a reason they're known for their chicken - I had a bite and then changed my mind, claimed it back. It is spectacularly flavorful juicy chicken, I didn't even mind it being bone-in. Definitely the best whole bone-in chicken dish I've had, ever. (You do want to get the side of bread to go with it, we learned after ordering and realizing it could use a carb side. Which as previously mentioned, I was impressed when it showed up like 30 seconds after we asked for it. The bread isn't anything exceptional, but it is necessary to unlock the *full* potential of the chicken.)
Obviously we also tried both their ciders, the "natural" (funky/dry) and the "sweet" (which I would call more of a semi-sweet). It's 4 euro for a doble, which is a pretty solid price - but for the dry cider, you can also get a whole bottle for 8 euro, which is an *absurd* price. That said, I gave the sweet cider a solid 10/10, perfect sweet cider. I gave the natural a 9/10 - it was also absolutely delicious, and I wish such good dry ciders were that cheap anywhere in the US, but I have technically had better dry cider in my life, though certainly not *frequently*. (Too bad they don't sell the dulce by the whole bottle, cause we *would* have ordered a whole second bottle of it if we could've, instead just a second doble.)
We also ordered a slice of the cider cake, which was the other thing I wasn't terribly impressed with - it wasn't a bad cake, but it was a bit dry, and didn't taste overly cider-y. I'd agree with other reviews, I'd probably skip the desserts here. Honestly I'd probably just skip everything except the chicken and cider (unless they had the bean stew, which also sounded fantastic, but was, as it turns out, not always available even when it *is* winter.)
