Eating out in Spain

We went to our first Spanish restaurant as a family last night. There's a small eatery located not far from the base which had been recommended to us by neighbors, so we decided to check it out. I don't know if we were way early (7:30pm) or if there just isn't a lot of business on Sundays, but we were one of only two families in the place. Sometimes that's not a good sign, but we didn't want to look it that way.

Of course I brought along my little Spanish-English dictionary to help us figure out how to order. What was nice, however, is that the menu was in both Spanish and English. I wanted to try paella, but they were either out or hadn't made any yesterday; I'm not sure which was the case. Anyway... my husband and I decided to split a fried seafood platter with fries. Of course the boys weren't particularly enthused about anything authentic, so they chose cheeseburgers and fries.

We received our meals and the boys started to dig in, but soon stopped eating with such gusto. They said the meat didn't taste right. We tasted their burgers and no, they weren't quite like what we're accustomed to eating in the States, but they were okay. Our boys will eventually have to accept the fact that even McDonald's isn't quite the same here in Spain as it is in the States. It's just the way it is. Of course we've found that the Subway on base is pretty doggone close to "back home," therefore my oldest, in particular, wants to eat every meal there. Sigh... I have a feeling it's going to be a while before these guys want to go to another Spanish restaurant.

Like I mentioned before, my husband and I got the seafood platter, which had lots of different kinds of fish and I think some squid. Lord knows I wasn't sure what all was on the plate, but we tried it all and thought it was pretty tasty. What was fascinating to the boys was the fact that some of the fish was brought out still staring at us in that the heads hadn't been removed. The boys couldn't believe we were going to eat those fish! Of course we didn't eat the heads, but we offered them to the boys. They were mortified!

I couldn't help but think of the scene from the movie "A Christmas Story," where the family is forced to eat Christmas dinner in a Chinese restaurant because their turkey feast was ruined by the neighbors' dogs. The family is served roast duck, with the head still attached. Hilarious!