Viva Madrid

Five days after I got back from KL, S and I drove to Christchurch for the Robin Williams show. There, we had two absolutely abominable meals (at Ancestral and Liquidity), some good grub from Viva Madrid at the Arts Centre Weekend Market and Dream Garden, and an excellent breakfast at Drexels. I will elaborate on the rest some other day - today the focus is on Viva Madrid.

I first had churros about two years ago in Melbourne, in some churro speciality cafe. Churros were all the rage there at the time, so I had to see what the fuss was all about. The churros at that cafe were rock hard, dry sticks served with thick, lumpy, 'overcooked' melted chocolate. That put me off churros completely, until three weeks ago.

S and I were at the market prowling for a tasty breakfast treat when we spotted the very chic looking Viva Madrid caravan. There must have been something seemingly authentic and likeable about Viva Madrid and its proprietor (must have been my weakness for paella, which was also on the menu) because we 'threw caution in the wind' and ordered some churros. Hah. I must admit that I bit into the first churro with some apprehension, despite being convinced that they had to be far better than the ones I had in Melbourne. Luckily, they were. Curved into elegant loops, unlike the roughly cut sticks I had in Melbourne, these churros were light, crunchy and crisp, but still slightly soft and chewy on the inside. We opted to go without the chocolate dip, so we were really able to taste the sugar coated churros as they were - and they were good. My only comment would be that I thought they were very slightly overcooked, which is easy to do because they are quite thin and they have grooves. Maybe that's how they're supposed to be, but I think they would taste even better if they were either a bit thicker, or spent less time in the frier.

I tried to order the paella at the same time, but it wasn't going to be ready till about lunch time, which was a bit inconvenient. We were pleased enough with the churros, however, that we decided to meander around town until lunchtime just so we could go back to Viva Madrid to get some paella. And I'm glad we did. It was very tasty and had a quite intense, complex seafood flavour. The lemon juice provided the nice acidity and brightness on top of the bold flavoured, pleasantly oily, yummy, hearty paella. A far cry from that paella recipe that we tried from that beer cookbook. Still, the best paella that I ever had was at Moussandra, in KL, but I'll have to get some pictures before I write about that. 

Gordon Ramsay's Cookalong Christmas Paella

S and I both love watching Gordon Ramsay's F Word, Cookalong Live and Hell's Kitchen. He is entertaining, intense, doesn't mince words and best of all, his recipes are relatively straightforward. Between the two of us, we have tried quite a few of his recipes that have generally turned out well, but only managed to photograph a few. As luck would have it, one of the ones I photographed isn't one of his better recipes.

Maybe it was because we didn't use a 'paella/large enough frying pan'. Or maybe it was because we forgot to heat up the store bought vegetable stock before pouring it into the mix. Nevertheless, these oversights/omissions would have only addressed the moistness issue, not the taste. Gordon's Christmas Paella (as seen on Cookalong Live) wasn't inedible, but it was bland and rather wet and risotto-like. I didn't really mind that it wasn't as dry as a paella should be, but the lack of flavour was unacceptable and thoroughly disappointing.

In retrospect, the dubious use of vegetable stock, rather than fish or seafood stock, in the recipe should have set off warning bells. Dissatisfied, I looked up meat paella recipes on the same website and found exactly the two missing things that I thought should have been in the recipe - in the meat paella recipe, the meat is cooked in the pan first, then the oil from the meat is used to flavour the paella rice and chicken stock is used. Therefore, to maximise the flavours of the seafood, I think Gordon's recipe should have had us searing an oily fish like salmon or cod, skin side down, in the pan first (or whole prawns, etc) and using hot fish or seafood stock.

We will definitely be making (or at least trying to make) paella again, since we love it and are on the hunt for a perfect recipe, and maybe next time, if we're in the mood for seafood paella, we will try Gordon's recipe again with our modifications. Otherwise, we will be testing this Chicken and Chorizo Paella recipe.

Anyway, we sat down with our bowls of paella and watched this episode of the F Word. By the end of the show, S was ready to try another recipe of Gordon's (from the show) to make up for the disappointing paella. To be continued...