After taking our drink orders, the waiter returned with a Coca-cola Zero, a flask of wine, and two tall glasses, scratched from years of use. I wondered why he didn’t bring a wine glass as I pulled the cork from the flask.

“How does that work again?” Michael asked me, eyeing the flask. “How do they know how much wine you drink?”

“They don’t. It doesn’t matter. Wine is included in the menu, so I just drink what I want.”

“And then they just take it back.”

“Yep. And put it in the fridge and serve it to the next table.”

It was the house wine and wasn’t anything to write home about. I noted as much to Michael who pointed to something the waiter had put down with our drinks that I hadn’t registered: a bottle of Casera, a sweetened carbonated water.

Now it was all making sense.

I poured some Casera into the wine and the refreshing taste of summer met my lips.

This combination is called tinto de verano — literally “summer wine.”

But today was February 17th. Not exactly the season for tinto de verano. Though it was seventy degrees outside, so maybe what matters is not the season but the outdoor temperature?

The waiter returned with wide soup bowls. When we’d arrived, he told us that the only food he could give us was a garabanzo dish and cachopo — a local specialty Michael and I had only tried once, with less-than-stellar reviews. But we were hungry. And in the middle of nowhere.

“I saw other people eating all kinds of things when I looked in the dining room,” Michael told me. “How come we can’t get those?”

“Probably because most places only take lunch diners until 3:30 or so, and we got here at 3:45. They probably have a pot of soup back there, and every place has cachopo ready to go.”

“Or maybe they saw two non-Spanish people and decided this is what we get.”

I rolled my eyes. “That’s very American of you to think that,” I said.

I remembered an American friend of ours who had read about people getting “gringo’d” here in Spain. In other words, treated differently and possibly taken advantage of as we were clearly not from this country.

“I don’t think that’s true,” I said to Michael. In fact, when I’d first heard the phrase I thought, “Hm, either I haven’t ever had that experience or just didn’t know it was happening.”

“I think there’s a mentality among some Americans that someone is out to get us or cheat us or something. I don’t think this guy has any reason to do that. They probably take reservations and only have so much food on hand.”

The waiter then brought over a silver-handled soup pot with contents inside to feed at least four people. “I wonder if whatever we don’t eat, they just toss back into the soup pot?” I said as I scooped some onto my plate. I hate wasting food.

As Michael served himself, I tried the dish and then smiled. “This is delicious,” I told Michael.

“Yeah? Did we hit the jackpot again?” he said, with a devilish smile spreading across his face.

Michael and I had a habit, when on weekend road trips and in the middle of nowhere, of searching Google maps and Google reviews for nearby dining establishments only for Michael to lose patience with the whole process and just set out in the direction he feels best, imagining we’ll find a place, while I still feverishly try to redirect my search to the direction he’s decided to drive. At which point he tells me to put down my phone and enjoy the scenery, assured we’ll find something.

And he’s always right.

“I could just eat this,” Michael said, finishing his serving of garabanzo stew. But we had committed to the menu del día — or at least the version of it the waiter had told us. So as much as I wanted to devour a second bowl, I wisely held back, as cachopo was on its way.

What is cachopo? It’s like a ham and cheese sandwich, except the bread is replaced with thin slices of beef. And then the whole thing is breaded and fried.

And it usually takes up your entire plate.

When the waiter returned to take back the vat of soup, I remarked to him how delicious it was. Michael then, much to my embarrassment, asked about the food the other diners were eating and why that wasn’t available.

“Most people make reservations and we only have food for so many people. Usually we can take people until 3:30, but today we were full at 3:15. But we always have garabanzos and cachopo. . . “

I smiled at Michael. I may have rolled my eyes as well.

“I’m a little worried about what this is going to cost,” I said to Michael. “There’s a sign up there saying something about cachopo weekend with thirty Euro meals.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Michael said. “We were hungry. We had to eat.”

The cachopo arrived accompanied by french fries. With high hopes and a hungry stomach, I cut off a piece and tried it.

“Oh, Michael. We did it again.”

After dessert (chocolate cake and coffee for Michael, tarta de yema for me), we asked for the bill.

I’ve been told it’s rude to remark how cheap things are here as, for Spaniards on a Spanish salary, it is not cheap.

So I’ll just say this: it was definitely not thirty Euros per person. It wasn’t even thirty Euros for two people.

When trying to do some research for this post, I learned the restaurant does not have a web site. On Trip Advisor someone said, “If you’re lucky enough to get a table. . . ” Another person said you should reserve three months in advance. Another said it was the best cachopo they’ve ever had.

I think next time Michael and I are hungry and in the middle of nowhere, I’ll recommend we skip the Google searching and just see what we can find.