‘Filth’ makes for a surprisingly great taco, and other Google Translate fails

It looked so inviting. And it featured a version of "The Last Supper" with Salma Hayek in the spot of Jesus (seen on the wall behind the people at the bar). 

We tried a tiki taco place in Madrid’s Santa Isabella neighborhood for dinner. It seemed somewhat overwhelming to order in Spanish, but Ryan persevered, and we're glad we did so. 

While waiting to order, we tried running the different tacos through Google Translate with unhelpful results.

Initially, based on three lazy quarters of college Spanish, I thought that pastor might be fish and planned to order that. But Google Translate reported pastor to mean “shepherd." Ryan said he'd rather not eat that. Recalibrating, I thought that might mean lamb, but it actually turned out to be tenderloin pork. Naturally. 

Suadero came back as “sweater,” but it actually meant leg of pork. Lengua came back as “tongue,” so we skipped that one, too. Google translated the last option on the menu, Cochinada, as “filth.” Not the best selling point. 

We ultimately decided to try three different tacos: “tinga de pollo” (a.k.a. chicken); calabacin (a.k.a. zucchini); and nopales (a.k.a. cactus, which we learned from the menu because Google Translate was totally wrong and said it meant nothing. Not "nothing" — just no ). 

Elizabeth laughs at me. Or perhaps laughs in relief that we would get food. 

You order drinks when you get to the head of the line outside. Once you're in the restaurant, you order the food at the cashier where the "rules" of engagement are posted. 

This restaurant has “rules” which we messed up once. We thought “returning to line” meant we could buy more tacos after we were seated by rejoining the cashier line. It didn’t. We had to leave the restaurant and go to the back of the line outside the place. But since we already knew how to do it, we ultimately waited in line again (“de nuevo”) because the tacos and drinks were that delicious.  

It was sooooo worth it. 

We did slightly better ordering the second time through, though the cashier was definitely laughing with us, if not at us, as we went through again. And the filth taco was the best we had of the bunch even if we're still not sure what, besides a roasted/smoked pork, was in it. 

And that's what a "Google Translate filth" taco looks like.