An unwanted layer between city and sky

When looking at the picture I have of myself on top of the mirador of the Palacio de Comunciaciones  in downtown Madrid (visit! It’s pretty!), most people say things like “wow, you are so lucky to live in such a pretty place!” My friend who studies environmental issues, however, pointed to the skyline and said, “look, photochemical smog.”

Air pollution is a part of life in Madrid, and it is made worse by the chronic lack-of-rain here. Yes, we have those beautiful blue skies, but sometimes our atmosphere (and our streets) need the cleaning that a good downpour can bring. While some reports from local government state that air quality is better than a decade ago, people with asthma and who spend lots of time outside biking or running can note that they encounter air that is less than pristine.

Whether it is because of weather or because standards for Madrid’s air pollution are not up to par, you should know that when you come to Madrid, for the first time, you may encounter a place lacking in fresh air. There are ways to escape or at least make the smog less present in your life in Madrid, and you don’t even have to wear a face mask, though some people here still wear them while biking or riding the metro.

1. Spend time in Parque del Buen Retiro, which is large enough and far enough from streets to have significantly different air quality than the surrounding streets. This has the added benefit of being a beautiful place to spend time and exercise, and you are less likely to end up wheezing at the end of your afternoon.

2. Speaking of running, if you can’t make it to Retiro, try doing your running in a gym; runners take in much more air than a person at rest, which means that during your outdoor run you are taking in many more pollutants, which isn’t good for your fitness at all.

3. Choose your outdoor paths to avoid highly-trafficked roads. The worst air pollution is, predictably, near high-traffic roads, and so you can use your commute to find a less-travelled path to wherever you need to go.

4. If you must be out and about, shoot for early morning. An early morning run is slightly less problematic for your lungs because of the ways pollutants circulate during the day.

For more information about air quality, including a map that shows up-to-date air quality around the city, visit http://www.mambiente.munimadrid.es/svca/index.php

My life in Madrid is nothing if not a quest for new experiences, specifically of the culinary variety. Thus, when a friend invited me to try an Indian menú del día in Lavapiés, I was excited despite having only eaten Indian food once in my life.

For one thing, Menú del día is a brilliant invention when you are very hungry. They exist all over Spain, so you’ve probably already seen them, but for one price, you get to choose a first course (primer plato), main course (Segundo plato – how unintuitive),  and then bread, a drink, and sometimes dessert. All this, for somewhere between 8 and 12 euros in the majority of places, and you are stuffed with food but also still have a few coins to rub together.

Lavapiés was a special treat though. The restaurants practically come to you, because many of them have a promoter out front to talk to you, and talk you into eating at their restaurant. My friend and I entered Anarkoli, a restaurant that typified the 5 or 6 restaurants on the street Calle Lavapiés right next to the metro stop Lavapiés (means ‘footwash,’ literally). The first thing we got when we sat down was an appetizer of round wafer-like crackers (think a crispy version of a flour tortilla) with a bright green, surprisingly sweet sauce.

Then we surveyed the menu options; be prepared for the menu to have stipulations, such as only being valid on weekdays for the midday meal; since my first Lavapiés Indian-food experience, I have bent these rules in some of the restaurants. When someone approaches you and tries to get you to choose a particular restaurant, ask if they have the menu del dia at that time; if it gets you in the door, they may say yes.

At Anarkoli, with the vegetarian (8E) or the regular (10E) meal, you can have a soft drink, a bottle of water, beer, or wine. Then you generally get to pick from entrantes, or first courses: many of the restaurants have delicious vegetarian or chicken samosas, fried pockets made of thin, wonton-like crispy dough. I tried an onion bhajee at Anarkoli, which is a crab-cake shaped patty of fried onion and spices.

Next comes the main course, which can be anything from Chicken Tikka Masala to Sag Paneer to curry. Many people order rice instead of the menu-del-dia staple, bread; I personally often order garlic naan, a soft and savory round of pillowy bread, and pile my main course on top. It doesn’t get any points for classiness, but it is quite delicious.

Finally, you can have coffee or dessert, which can vary but the menu often includes a sugar-syrup soaked pastry that tastes like coconut.  Another frequent choice is mango lassi, a yogurt smoothie that is my personal favorite despite being somewhat overwhelming for people who don’t like sweets as much as I do.

If you can’t get enough of the Indian cuisine, you can also go across the street after dinner to pick up Indian cooking supplies, like jars of masala or various kinds of rice, at the grocery stores that line that side of calle Lavapiés.

Anarkoli

Lavapies 46