Madrid: Spanish Mexican Food.

As I walked to the royal palace yesterday morning, I walked in an area where some workers were gutting the inside of a building. The outside advertising noted that it would soon be a Taco Bell.

"A Taco Bell in Madrid?" I wondered how that would fare.

I'm not sure if there already exists a Taco Bell in this city. But I wasn't going to go to it, despite my enthusiastic fondness for their tacos. But tacos I was indeed craving all of today. So I needed to find some place in this city to get some.

Naturally, Google came in handy. It pointed me to a taqueria about a 15 minute walk from my hotel. But it wasn't even open until 8pm today.

I sighed. It was 6pm. I was starving. 

"I am never going to be able to live in Europe," I said to myself. "I can't consistently eat this late."

But I wanted tacos badly. So I waited till 7:45pm, and began my walk to the place. I even had to walk slowly, just to make sure I wasn't my usual prompt self and show up a few minutes early. It served me well. I sat down at one of the empty tables in the plaza by the restaurant just at 8:05pm.

The server brought me a menu and I ordered a margarita and some spicy beef tacos.

The margarita was really good. They served it in a proper martini glass. Not some obscene oversized goblet thing. And it was strong. I couldn't even finish it, even though it was quite small.

But the best bit were the tacos...

Holy crap! They were spicy!

So, so perfect. Well, to be honest... The tortillas could have been better. I would have preferred corn ones. But this isn't Mexico. So pre-packaged ones that they heated up would do, given that the beef was so awesome.

I'm really glad I took the time to find this place. The Sun wasn't even setting as I started to walk back to my hotel 45 minutes later.

I'll never be a "night owl", I guess.