Always tilting at windmills, my friends, always tilting at windmills... For today's adventure in culinary absurdity, we're back on Gulou Dong Dajie at a new "Spanish & Rural" restaurant called Malaga. Here's the signage. Note the font choice: garbled 1940s typewriter nervous breakdown. That always inspires confidence doesn't it? It's like the menu font for every janky beachfront reggae bar in Asia. Malaga is a Spanish restaurant and bar, newly opened just in time for the "World Cup", which is, as I understand it, like the Nirvana of soccer tournaments. The bar is somewhat decked out in the national plumage of the perennial tournament contenders -- Spain, Brazil, Germany, France, et al. -- and they have several framed magazine clippings of the guy from Bend it Like Beckham. Oh yes, we're in some good hands here. It's two floors of thick blond woods and brick, with a very spacious second floor angling towards the all-important flat screen TV, which is already looping various soccer highlights from local and far-flung grassy rectangles around the world. Malaga is a very traditional Spanish restaurant that draws on hundreds of years of proud Spaniard culinary heritage. Perusing the menu, we've got cheaply-priced (30-60rmb) pan-Asian noodles, pizza, and a tapas section (chicken popcorn, French fries, chicken wings, and potato wedges in that one), hamburgers, and other Spanish classics. The star item on the menu, however -- the item on the menu that we were there specifically to sample -- is a giant pork schnitzel and bacon submarine sandwich that's roughly the size of Thor's cock. Look on his works ye mighty and despair: This is the "Malaga Fort Nuclear-Powered Submarine" (108rmb). According to the menu, it's "Cheese ham sandwich mix lettuce tuna onion tomato goose liver potato bacon". Full stop. It comes in a two-foot baguette, as is the Spanish tradition. It takes two waiters to bring over. One sticks around to cut it for you. Right then, that's when you should start laughing like a maniac. Jesus. The first thing that strikes you is hey, wait a minute, where's the damn sauce? There's no sauce. None. It's just a straight-up ogre's fist of bread and meat and eggs and meat and meat and bread. It's like trying to eat a tube sock of desert sand. It's trying to mug you. You've basically just got to arm wrestle the damn thing for 20 minutes until it turns into a softball of anguish and locally-sourced ingredients on your plate. That's when you should probably get this. It's a "Matador" (38rmb) -- the most metaphorically apt selection from the long and baffling cocktails list for this bull's dick of a sandwich. It's something, mixed with something, mixed with something else, and about 90 goddamn chilies, no joke. Applying the Matador to the Nuclear Sub leaves you with, pretty much, a hummus of chicken, remorse, goose liver, sorrow, bread, and regret. It's a trip, man. It's a trip. It's light versus dark, good versus evil. I can't really talk about it anymore... I just can't. Thumbs waaaay up, obviously. Oh, hey, they also have a hamburger that is the size of Andre the Giant's teardrops. This is the plastic sample from the display case out front. It looks like a real bastard. I'm going back for it. I'm a sucker for Spanish cuisine. All in, Malanga is Spanish-not-Spanish food for giants? I guess? Their self-introduction on the menu is that the restaurant is set up "after [the] Spanish city of Malaga, Serbia, Madrid, Barcelona". Mmmmkay, I can dig it. With that sort of international outlook, this place is going to be hopping for World Cup! Ole-Ole-Ole! *** Malaga is at 138 Gulou Dong Dajie. Tel. 6402 7088.