Living La Vida Iberoamericana: Is It an Early Dinner or a Late Lunch?

Let me let you in on a little secret: I eat dinner at 4:30 every day.

Let me explain.

I love dining early. America has a name for it, early bird specials. You enter the restaurant before 1630, you get some kind of discount. Popular among senior citizens and college students (college cafeterias tend to have ridiculously early dining times, like dinner is over at 6:30).

One of the challenges of living in the US is the thirty minute lunch hour (I know, a hour that is only 30 minutes, blagh). This usually results in eating a small cold sad work lunch. Often eaten at your desk. Or you go out and eat some kind of fast food masquerading as real food like chipotle burrito bowl or a cava bowl. (It is such a trend in the states to eat your food all mixed up in a bowl as if you are a farm animal.)

The solution: I eat my lunch as a merienda around 11 am and then eat a Spanish-style lunch at 1630. Real food. Menú del día quality. Then I go to sleep at 9 pm. Up again at 6 to greet the world.

Obviously in Spain I go back to the normal dining schedule, but I have to say it's getting harder and harder to wait until 9 pm to dine. I'm that person circling the restaurants around 7:30 p.m. hoping someone will open their kitchen so I can eat. It is a good strategy for getting a table, though, and by the time I'm done eating, everyone else is trying to find a table.

Elderly couple enjoying an early bird special dining discount