#42 Start a day with churros from the Chocolatería San Ginés

If you ask me, Spain doesn't have a super wide variety of traditional pastries and sweet things. But churros with chocolate is a wonderfully greasy and chocolately thing that Spain does right. Some people consider churros Spain's version of donuts, but they're almost more like fried dough to me. Either way, if you have a strong stomach for grease and sugar, this is the Spanish treat for you.

Feast.

For those of you who aren't familiar, churros are typically served with either coffee or chocolate. You can get them at most cafes in Spain, but they're typically only served in the morning. However, there are some specific churrerías or chocolaterías that serve this treat all day long (or in some cases, super late into the night). While you can get churros most anywhere in Madrid, the Chocolatería San Ginés, located halfway between the Puerta del Sol and Ópera, is one of the most famous and I think one of the oldest still running churrerías in the city (it opened in 1894). And, according to their business card, they're open "all day and night." (Their website, on the other hand, says 9 am until the "early morning," whatever that means.) Perfect hangover food after the typical madrileño long night out on the town, I guess?

You know it's morning cause
 my hair's still wet.

Anyway, I've been to San Ginés several times, (and at different parts of the day - in the morning, the afternoon, at night, but not in the wee hours of the morning, I assure you). However, until recently I had actually never "started a day with churros" from San Ginés. When Maddie came to visit me back at the beginning of May, we set off one morning without having eaten much breakfast, and I suggested churros. We were pretty hungry, so we ordered churros, porras (basically just the version of a churro on steroids), chocolate for said churros and porras, and our respective morning beverages (coffee for me, tea for her). I'm not really sure how we downed all this at eleven in the morning, but, my friends, we did. And it was muy rico.

I haven't really done a lot of searching for amazing churros elsewhere in Spain, but if you're not in Madrid and want good churros (particularly at any time of the day), another place that I would recommend is the Chocolatería Valor, which is a chain of chocolaterías throughout the country. Their churros are a slightly different style, but they're equally delicious and heart-attack inducing. Buen provecho!