We visited Casa Lucas just after our trip to Aragon and Navarre where we ate nothing but pintchos. I did not plan it to be like this but we ended up eating more of these scrumptious sandwich tapas in Madrid and Casa Lucas did not disappoint!

Casa Lucas, calle de la Cava Baja, 30, 28005

This will be a short one because we did a quick in-and-out dinner and there is not much to say: the wine was good, the food was good, the service, well, the service always leaves something to be desired… We had the following four glasses of wine: La Poda D.O. Valdeorras (€3.50), Elias Mora D.O. Toro (€4), 88 Uvas D.O. Madrid (€3), H. Lopez y Haro D.O. Rioja (€3) and all of these were excellent, last Rioja being the simplest of them all. But I love a decent wine pour and Casa Lucas delivers.

The menu at Casa Lucas is rather short and I love it! We started by ordering Jumilla which turned out to be a spinach and leek “pate” with prawns (€6). This was probably my favourite of the three – the pate was creamy and buttery, on top of the sensational mouthfeel, it also had a lovely taste. A win-win! Those shoestring fries were crack too. So addictive!

Mancha turned out to be a warm ratatouille with fried quail’s egg and jamón (€8). This was so good too. Ratatouille was warm and tangy, veggie pieces still retaining some of their original cronch. The egg was soft and creamy. AND WE GOT MORE OF THE CRACK, I mean more of those shoestring fries…

OK, I have to say that all three tapas were great. Cariñena included a grilled pork tenderloin on confit onions (€6) and that tenderloin was so gosh darn TENDER. I do not think you understood me, it was so heavenly T-E-N-D-E-R. It was bite-able, easily chew-able and super flavoure-able.

One drawback of Casa Lucas is that it got SOOPER busy and the service went downhill very quickly. In order to pay, I had to elbow my way to the bar and through the noise and all the clatter, I could not convince the guy that I drank and ate more than he was charging me for, so we ended up paying for three glasses of wine and two pintchos. This is also not the first time items are missing on our check. It really beats me how these places stay afloat if they hardly ever charge the right amount. *BIG SHRUG*