Soho Bar Restaurante, C/ Jorge Juan 50

Last night I felt like having a few beers. Without food this would have ended in another lost weekend, but I happen to know this bar with a restaurant upstairs. The bar is a real bar, it actually does look like a bar in Soho, New York. For once a Buweiser Neon (in the window) makes sense and looks good. The cocktails look good and when they are being prepared it's not the messy affair that you usually get and they make sense in a place like this. The restaurant upstairs a real restaurant. The menu is American and is therefore perfect in combination with those beers I wanted.
We didn't have a reservation, on Friday and Saturday it is better to have one, but we were asked to wait and after about 5 minutes we could have a table for 45 minutes. Apologies were made for this because this way we couldn't have "sobremesa", linger at the table after dinner, but I wanted to do that at the bar anyway.
We started with the guacamole which was fresh, but on the salty side which was a pitty. The Special Soho Burger was good, the meat was tender, the potatochips were fantastic and the Ternera Little Italy covered in tomatosauce and mozarella was really nice as well. Still, someone in the kitchen was having a love affair with the salt. I already wanted to have a few drinks, so they didn't have to make me with the salt. We had a good meal, the service was great and we will go back.
What about the toilets? The way they should be: clean.
As for those drinks, I was too full and too tired after dinner to have another and so we went home.

Taberna Los Ángeles, Costanilla Ángeles 8

People visiting Madrid are a good excuse to go out for dinner. Since we live in Madrid we are supposed to know where is good and so we don't experiment trying new places unless the visitor is paying and money is no object. Since we don't know many people these days that can say that, we stuck to the first option last weekend and had lunch in La Daniela again; I couldn't move afterwards I ate so much and it was that good, again. On Saturday we were in the city center around Puerta del Sol and we were hungry. Not that familiar in the area when it comes to restaurants, we ended up in Taberna Los Ángeles just off Opera and Calle Arenal. We had been there before a couple of years ago, but I didn't really remember what it was like. The place is faux antique country style with lots of crap collected on shelves along the walls, not just from one particular period (a bit like Irish Pubs that sometimes look more like agricultural museums than pubs), but the food is OK. Straightforward traditional Spanish country cooking with fresh salads and lots of meat. Service was swift and the price was right. I reckon they prepare everything in big quantities which I think in a way adds to the taste. It's not super exciting, but it's definitely not like VIPS or El Corte Inglés (I recently made the mistake of having something to eat there, I was using WiFi, and you guessed it, it was just the worst). All in all it was good, but I was told that the toilets were disgusting. Thank God I didn't have to go because that would have put me off. So note to self: Taberna Los Ángeles, ok food. Avoid toilet!