On my first trip to Europe, we were driving through northern Spain (in Galicia, I believe). Rural area, getting late in the day, girlfriend was hungry and starting to protest the lack of food. No cafes we could find, but we spotted a bar in some tiny town we drove through. It looked a bit questionable, but there was nothing else around, and I figured we would poke our heads in. We did.
I open the door, we step in. Every head turns (my girlfriend was quite attractive, and often turned heads). The room went completely silent, except for the TV over the bar with a football match. She looks at me anxiously and pulls me a bit closer. There's not another female in the place. The patrons look a bit scruffy, this is clearly a working man's bar. No fancy food here, it seems. I reassure her, "Don't worry, my Spanish is pretty good. Let's just see what they have..."
I ask if there's food. Bartender says "si!" and nods towards an empty table. We sit down, he brings a menu. I order a glass of red wine for her, water for me. Nothing on the menu looks familiar, absolutely nothing, I can make no sense of it at all. We (well, OK, mostly her) are still getting a lot of stares. We are getting uneasy.
Looking up and down at the menu, I finally spot something that I thought looked like "morsellas" (spelling approximate). Guessing that this must be the Spanish word for "morsels", in other words, some kind of small snacks, I'm thinking...tapas. Yeah, lets order some tapas, how bad could it be? And it'll be a small portion, so a low-risk choice. "Morsellas, por favor!"
Bartender scurries off, comes back and puts a large, warm bowl of, um, something, in front of us with two spoons, and walks away. It looked kind of like chili or a stew, it was mostly small chunks of meat, tripe, I think, in a thin, a brown sauce. It smelled god-awful. My girlfriend shot me a look. I smiled and picked up a spoon. She didn't. She sat with her arms folded, looking at me like I was crazy.
I stirred the contents of the bowl a little, hoping I might find a hint of a vegetable or some rice in there, but nope, it just looked like chunks of meat in a sauce. I poked around, cautiously put a bit of the stuff in my spoon, brought it towards my mouth. My girlfriend grimaced. I took a sniff - ugh! - it smelled horrible. I hesitated. I could hear a few people at the bar starting to snicker. I touched the spoon to my tongue. Oh god, that's foul, I muttered. I opened my mouth, trying to stifle my gag reflex.
My girlfriend picked up her glass of wine, and tossed back half of it in one big gulp. She put down her glass, looked at me, and shook her head. I took a tiny bite of the stuff. It was tough, greasy, slightly sweet and and a little spicy, and I started to retch. I closed my eyes and managed to swallow. She laughed out loud at me - HAH! I put my spoon down quickly, grabbed her wine glass and drank all of what was left in it, then chugged my full glass of water, and shuddered.
I stood up, walked to the bar, asked for the bill, paid it, turned around. My girlfriend was already out the door, several of the bar patrons were howling with laughter. I managed a weak smile, waved adios and muttered a quick "gracias!", headed out the door, and back to the car. We drove on in silence.
No more experimenting with unknown "morsels" for us on that trip.