It's Like a Brownie's Cake

Amanda and I went El Chaflan for our anniversary dinner last night and had a great time. The kind folks at El Chaflan have translated their Spanish menu into English for the myriad Americans and Brits who frequent Madrid's culinary scene (and presumably for the other Europeans who share English as a common second language). One thing we've noticed about Spanish menu translations is the proclivity for Spanish foods to possess the other foods that they are paired with. This makes sense, given that one common way to say, for example, "chocolate cake" in Spanish is "pastel de chocolate" (literally, "cake of chocolate"). It is not a far cry to say "chocolate's cake," regardless of how strange this sounds to English speakers.

We were happy to find the following dish on the English dessert menu:
"It's like a brownie's cake topped with a pear's ice cream"

Awesome.

The only other strange translation we've run into in Spain comes from our Euro-style coffee maker. The English version of the instructions recommend that we "use water with a low time content." This sounds like a relationship between matter and time that would make Einstein proud. I think it might be more prosaic than that, though... the Spanish side of the directions say: "utilizar agua con poco contenido en cal." A Spanish to English online dictionary indicates that the sentence probably means "use soft water."

That's much less interesting than water with a low time content.