How Much Paper is on the Floor?

The Spanish bar crawl has a specific name: El Chiquiteo. The tapas bar also has a name: Tascas, literally referring to the wide-mouthed glasses in which beverages are served. On an inpromptu visit to the Pays Basque with some dojo-mates, we did a chiquiteo in the Old Quarter of San Sebastian, a crooked maze of streets lined with football flags, pro-Basque banners, and tascas. Since I did post on San Sebastian previously, I'll refrain from re-describing the area in detail.

I don't know the names of any of the tascas we visited, but it doesn't matter much. Perhaps the locals have favorite bars to visit, but for the meandering tourists like us, F described the best strategy: "Look and see how much paper trash and cigarettes are on the floor. If there's a lot, go there." At each tasca we downed two or three pintxos (tapas) with a beer or txacoli and then moved on to the next paper-covered tasca. Sardines on beds of something green and red to fill out the Basque colors, lightly-fried fish of unknown origin, shrimp on a bed of creamed something-or-other with chopped pickled cucumbers, ball-of-ground-meat, cod croquette, ham layered with black, flat mushrooms. There seems to be no rhyme or reason to what appears any particular day; my impression is that the chef or bartender rummages around in the kitchen to see what was delivered that day, fries some stuff, mixes other stuff, chops, dices, and slices, does some minimal sauteeing, yells at the bar across the street to stop stealing the good fish, grabs some pickled stuff out of jars, and then stacks it all on slices of bread or in shells of bell peppers on the plates lining the bars. Then he throws some thick tranches of manchego cheese and six types of sliced meat in between while drizzling olive oil over it all and says "There, Eat That."

The result? Me in deep conversation with a Spanish woman. Though she spoke no French or English, and the only words of Spanish I know are "hola" and "adios," somehow we were able to discuss the red and rose' wines of the Basque region, and why drinking a glass of rose' is far better than drinking beer (because beer is fattening.) Soon another woman joined in to say yes, beer is more fattening, but preferable because it has lower alcohol than wine thus one can prolongue the pintxos-eating. Then a man, presumably her husband, chimed in (I have no idea where my friends were at this point) to say beer doesn't go as well with the flavor of pintxos. Before I knew it there was a grand debate raging about the best drink to go with pintxos, with the bartender finally bellowing that everyone must choose their own drink of choice and if undecided, drink one of each. With that, I thanked the first woman for her conversation, slugged the remainder of my beer, and went to rejoin my group. Who needs to speak the local language, anyway?