Funny Portugal Story

My husband loves coffee. And he's Spanish. Which means that he can only drink coffee with lots of milk, in the manner of a proper cafe con leche. If we happen to be in a different country, or on an airplane, he always orders coffee, not even with a moment's hesitation with the fact that the coffee might not taste the same, or have the same amount of coffee grounds, water, milk combination. And it's surprising...every time.

So we're in Lisbon, where we noticed very quickly that the coffee was quite strong, and very badly proportioned with the amount of milk. That doesn't stop us from ordering the coffee that was included with our lunch "menu". The nice lady brings us tiny cups of only coffee to the table. Jose pours in his two packets of sugar (hardly dissolving in so little liquid) and dutifully tries to drink it. He doesn't get down more than the tiniest of sips before sputtering. I don't even try.

He calls over the waitress. Can you bring us some milk please? Milk? she asks. Yes. A bit of milk. So over she comes with a tiny cup full of milk (confused, I'm sure). So, here we are at the table with two full cups (albeit, tiny ones) of coffee and one more, full of milk. No help.

He calls over the waitress, again. Can you bring us another cup? An empty cup? she asks. Yes. She brings another tiny cup over (now very confused, I'm certain). He manages to mix a bit of milk with a bit of coffee in one tiny cup and in another a little more for me. We manage to drink half a tiny cup of coffee, among the 4 cups and stained table cloth before discreetly asking for the check and high tailing it out of there in embarrassment.