Supper Quest

I had looked up the area on Google a few months ago, so I knew there was a restaurant area across the Turia from us, so we headed there.  The Turia is awesome!  More on that later.  They eat late in Valencia, so we thought everything would be open by 7pm.  Not!  There were a few places open, but most seemed to be waiting until 8.

We passed a fruit and vegetable store, and another one that was closed.  There were bread stores and pastry stores!  The few cafes open seemed to be winding down.  And nobody had air conditioning.  There was a slight breeze outside, but no AC inside.  We were sweating trying to read the menus.

We finally found a place to eat at.  We went inside and the lady there didn't speak English, which was fine.  I asked for the menu and we looked at it.  It was 5 pages long.  At this point, I'm over heated, sweating, and in the past 12 hours I've had yogurt, a few peanut butter crackers, and 1/3 of a small sandwich.  I was not in good shape.

I took a quick look at the menu and found hamburgers.  I hate the idea of going somewhere in Europe and ordering a burger, but I felt crappy and my stomach didn't feel too good either.  I figured a burger would sit best.  Frank loves looking at the menus, so I went outside and grabbed a table while he kept reading over it.  It was a really good menu!

Eventually he came outside and then went and placed our orders, and we waited for dinner.  It was a square table with 4 chairs and Frank sat across from me.  I had a Coke, and Frank had an Amstel. I didn't realize that's a Spanish beer.  They had several on tap and he said it was quite good.

When the lady brought the Coke and beer, she also brought out 2 little dishes of goodies.  They were stuff on bread, kind of like bruschetta.  The first one was some kind of chopped shrimp-fish stuff with cream sauce.  The other appeared to be lamb, cheese, and berry stuff.  I took pics, so you can see those later.  There were 2 of each.  I took a small bite of each, but my stomach wasn't happy so I waited on the burger.

Frank had gotten a salad, and it came out first on a golden plate.  It was pimento (roasted red bell peppers), a salad of greens with corn and tomato relish and vinagraitte dressing.  That was also on the peppers.  And there were 2 pieces of tuna, about 3-4 ounces total.  I took a bite of tuna and it was really good!

Finally, my burger came out.  It was on a big square slab with a small dish of what looked like cranberry relish, and a few fried potatos.  The burger bun was ciabatta-ish, but not actually ciabatta.  The burger was thick and had lettuce, tomato, and on top was a bunch of pieces of actual bacon.  Not slices, but pieces, stacked high.

One thing I had forgotten in my crappiness, is that they tend to cook burgers differently in Europe.  It looked about medium, and very pink.  Later, Frank said that could be because they cooked it with the bacon.  And there were lots of herbs in the meat.

I wasn't too concerned about a medium burger, because the quality of meat is better in Europe.  And I like my steaks medium rare.  But I wasn't sure how my stomach woud handle the medium ground beef.

I used my knife and fork and cut off a small bite.  It went down, but not that well. I tried another small bite.  I felt worse.  I drank a little Coke, and tried to let the food settle down in my stomach.  I felt kind of nauseous, so I turned my head a little to the side, and all of a sudden I vomited.  Mostly on the chair next to me.  Which is where Frank had set his hat.

So I puked everywhere.  Just once, but everywhere.  The chair had puke, the sidewalk, my shirt, my jean shorts. There was even a puke stain over 5 feet away. I tried to dab myself off with some napkins and did the same for the plastic chair.  The lady came out and I was like "Lo siento" but she seemed more worried about whether or not I was okay.

There was a mercadona a few doors down, so after dinner, Frank went there to get some Cokes, and maybe something I could keep down.  I stayed at the table with his pukey hat and paid the bill.  Also got my burger to go (Frank ate it later and said it was really good).

Frank got the Cokes and stuff, and one of those clear veggie bags to put his hat in.  It's a felt fedora, so he hosed it off in the shower and it's fine.

We went back to the hotel and cooled down again. I tried to eat a peanut butter cracker and that made my stomach feel bad, so I stopped.  Later I got down some Coke and a few pieces of chocolate.

And thus concludes our first day in Valencia.