Mexican food in the neighborhood

Jon and I went out on our usual Wednesday date walk today. First stop was the flea/fruit market (fleas and fruits in separate sections, thankfully). Heather bought six scarves for nine Euros, and Jon bought an assortment of fruits and veggies from a well-trafficked stand. Lacking Yelp or a similar crowd-rating app, our rule in Spain is "follow the people" -- meaning, always eat in restaurants where there's hoards of folks, buy in shops where we see lots of folks coming in/out, and so forth. At the fruit section of the market, there's two stalls that require a 20-minute wait to get the produce, and lots of stalls that have few customers. We don't know what makes the difference between the former and the latter, but we're not going to risk limp lettuce to find out.

We did, however, break the "follow the people" rule when finding a lunch place. It's hard to describe how many potential places there are to eat in Alcobendas/San Sebastien -- every commercial block has at least a couple bars, bar/restaurants, mesons, restaurantes, cervezerias, etc. We tried to apply the rule, but at only 1:30 in the afternoon, it was too early for restaurants to be full -- and in some cases, to even be open. Then we wandered by the Don Fer's Restaurante/Frida Bar and despite the lack of clientele, Heather was smitten. Especially because the owner/bartender and waitress/cook did their best to dissuade us from actually eating in their establishment, warning us twice that they serve Mexican food and describing it to us as if it were somewhat exotic ("Mexican food is burritos, tacos, enchiladas, other things like that").  The waitress/cook also warned us off the mole, saying that it was made with real Mexican ingredients and would be too spicy for normal people to eat (it was fine, spice-wise, and actually quite delicious). Homemade guacamole (yum), a burrito, two tacos (yum), and three enchiladas (yum) later, both the waitress and the owner both came over to suggest solutions to our pending indigestion.

Which is how Jon ended up with a shot of tequila for lunch:

(sorry for the blurriness -- iPhone 3 camera on short notice).

The waitress suggested a particular antacid; the owner thought the tequila would accomplish the same objective without a trip to the pharmacy. And then got out his bottle of tequila and handed Jon some. Which Jon enjoyed ("smooth.")

We may need more subjects and a double-blind trial to see whether tequila really is the answer. But the food was good, and the canas of beer bought Heather a nice post-lunch siesta (sorry to everyone whose email I didn't answer this afternoon!).