Try to learn (some) Spanish because... and other Madrid, Spain Local Custom Tips

...the locals aren't too fond of speaking English. That's how I, as a native Spanish speaker, experienced it. I stand corrected. I have written some handy phrases in my Dominican Republic page.

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Some restaurants, shops and hotels don't always include the VAT on their prices, so be careful with this. On all 3 restaurants we ate at they had printed "Prices don't include VAT" in a very small font at the end of the pages. When checking prices, our hotel's didn't include VAT either but before confirming the online booking they showed the price with and without this tax.

VAT (IVA in Spanish) is as of now 7% in restaurants and 16% for shops.

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I don't know if this is common in all of Spain, but we did have a hard time finding some places in Madrid because most of the buildings on the streets didn't have the numbers on. So after seeing maybe one, we had to count and guess our way to our destination.

Odd right? I wonder how mailmen deliver letters there :-S

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Pan con tomate was something I saw many Spaniards eat for breakfast. It's toasted bread with crushed tomatoes and olive oil. I tried and it was yummy! Pan con tomate can also be an appetizer or part of a tapas dish.

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If a restaurant or eating place has a "barra" (bar counter where you can eat and drink), then eating here costs less than eating at a table.

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I remember eating churros first in my home town when I was a kid. Those days they sold them with sugar on top. Nowadays there's a place called Soleil where you can buy them with vanilla cream, apple, nutella, etc. fillings.

You might be wondering, what is "churros"? A churro is a pastry made of fried dough. This dough has flower, oil, sugar and salt. The dough is then mixed and squeezed out of a churrera, a syringe with a star-shaped nozzle (much like those used when putting the frost on cakes). You can also find them with fillings like those above.

In Spain they're traditionally eaten at breakfast with hot cocoa but they can be enjoyed at any time of the day.

Another sweet I grew up seeing my dad eating is turrón. I never liked it and IMO it's an acquired taste. A turrón is best explained as hard nougat mixed with toasted almonds, sugar, egg white and honey. Turrón is a seasonal sweet and it's consumed during Christmas, but I managed to find some at the tax free shop at Barajas airport in June, which I sent to my dad as Father's day present.

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Madrileños eat both lunch and dinner later than in other countries (at least from where I've been to yet). Lunch is usually between 1pm and 4pm and dinner is served between 8:30pm and 11:30pm. What do people do between meals? They go tapas bar hopping, or "van de tapeo".

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Tapas is one of the dishes that people think of when they think of Spanish cuisine. Tapas are appetizers that are essentially served together with a drink.

Its name comes from the Spanish verb tapar which means to cover and there are some stories about how this dish became what it is today. One says that the King Alfonso X needed to take some wine sips as a prescription to a disease he had and that he had to eat small dishes together with the wine between hours, to "cover" the effects of alcohol. When he got better he ordered that wine was not to be served without a small ration of food. Another story says that tapas were "created" to prevent flies or other insects to get into the wine glasses between sips.

Nowadays tapas are enjoyed and the variations of tapas dishes are endless, being some of the most popular or traditional: olives, calamares (squid rings), gambas either al ajillo or with salsa negra (prawns with garlic or peppercorn sauce), meat balls, serrano ham, manchego cheese, chorizo, croquetas (made of fish or chicken), patatas bravas (potato dices served with spicy tomato sauce) and tortilla española (Spanish omelette).

A little plate of tapas is called porción. If you want to have a bigger plate or if you want to have a tapas dinner then ask for a ración (big tapas plate) or a media ración (half a big tapas plate) if you're not that hungry but want more than a porción.

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