Bar La Campana — Restaurant in Madrid

We waited for about 50min for a table (lined up before 2pm), but the lines were much longer after 2-3pm. They have one line for take-away and one for eating in. It's incredibly busy, and fairly loud/hectic inside.

You still have to go to the counter to order when you're eating in -- they do not come to the tables to take your order. We saw several people sitting at tables waiting for a while before staff came to tell them to order at the counter. You also carry your own food/drinks back to your table, so if you're ordering for a big group, bring someone to help carry everything back.

It was so loud in and outside that the staff got our order wrong, unfortunately (you pay straight away after ordering). We asked for a plate of Calamari rather than the Calamari sandwich, but we received the sandwich instead. We decided to just keep what we were given since there were too many people to bother with the hassel of ordering again.

If you get the sandwich, I highly recommend getting some sauce (spicy, mayo, aioli, it doesn't matter which) as the sandwich is rather bland/dry without it. It's just due to the combination of the calamari being very lightly salted and the thickness of the bread. It's one of the main reasons we wanted just a plate of calamari. But luckily we had ordered potatas bravas so we separated the bread and dipped it in the spicy sauce. The calamari tasted good by itself. The complimentary olives also went well with the bread. The thing I loved most was the bravas haha!

I probably wouldn't come back at second time because I like slightly quieter/calmer dining atmospheres, but it was certainly a...

We headed over to lunch which was again near the Plaza Mayor again. It was quite a popular calamari sandwich place which I had high hopes for. It was disappointing. It was literally just fried calamari slapped on top of a baguette bun which was so tough and not even crispy. When I ordered, he placed 2 already filled buns onto my plate, in which I knew it wouldn’t be crispy. There was no additional sauce, just straight up fried calamari on bread, which absorbed all the oil from the batter. There was no special marinade that I just ate half the sandwich as it wasn’t worth it.

What is most appalling was that I saw a server pick up a baguette bun which of takeaway sandwich that he dropped onto the floor and place it on the table. About a minute later, another server comes to repack the sandwich into a “newer” bag and gave it to a customer. I’m pretty sure they waited a bit before reselling it because I was seated right at the front, and they knew I could see it.

This lack of basic hygiene and food quality baffles me why anyone bothers to buy...

The squid sandwich (bocadillo de calamares), is one of the culinary specialties of Madrid.

The classic version is very simple: squid rings battered in flour and deep-fried, stuffed in a light, fluffy, crusty bread, served hot. One can add mayonnaise, aioli, brava sauce, or a squirt of lemon.

In Madrid, there are even "Rutas del Bocadillo de Calamares" (Routes of Squid Sandwiches) that one can follow to discover variants of the sandwich.

Why a place so far from the sea has squid as its emblem is uncertain. In the 16th century, the fish that arrived in Madrid came thanks to the muleteers from León, who supplied the capital with marine delicacies brought from Galicia and the Bay of Biscay, taking 12 days to reach the city. Their secret was the construction of icehouses along the route that they filled every winter.

Madrid's insistence on having fish, without having a beach, seems to be favored by Lent and other religious dates, where meat is not welcome. The rich batter is also attributed to the influence of Andalusian...