Sol e Pesca - canned fish for lunch in Lisbon

When you go to Lisbon (or Portugal), you notice canned fish in colourful wrappers being sold as souvenir items. There are now quite a few shops dedicated just for selling canned fish in Lisbon, primarily for tourists. However, amongst all these shops, the oldest Conserveira de Lisbon on Rua dos Bacalhoeiros 34 in Lisbon has been selling canned products since 1930. Shop design is rather old fashioned,  making you feel as if you are in a specialised store to purchase something order-made.
One of their registered brand canned fish is Tricana brand.

You buy the can and they wrap it for you as if it's something very precious. Canned fish is never be the same again ...

Canned fish industry started in 1853 in Portugal preserving sardines in olive oil, at peak times in its industry by 1983 there were more than 150 canning factories. In the late 80's and 90's the industry declined however it has now seen the revival with renovated packages as well as emergence of high-end, gourmet canned shops and restaurants.

Yes, you know they are only canned fish and yes you can buy them at supermarkets here, but somehow, when you are in Lisbon and see them in colourful and retro packaging, you cannot just ignore them and you ended up buying them for souvenir...

So,  being a model consumer and do what tourists do, I bought some cannes a few years ago whilst in Lisbon and have totally forgotten about them as they were left in a box sitting in the back of the larder cabinet.

I then wondered how People in Lisbon actually eat them. I know it's a silly question but do they have special way of cooking with them or just simply empty the contents of the can onto a plate and serve?

So we decided to try this hole-the-wall bar Sol e Pesca (meaning sun and fishing) (http://www.solepesca.com/S/Home.html) on Rua Nova do Carvalho 44. Apparently this place was featured on Anthony Bourdain's "No Reservations" in Lisbon on TV but I totally missed that.

It's located on 'Pink Street' which becomes very lively late at night, especially after pubs and bars in Bairro Alto shut. We went there for lunch so the street was rather quiet with some tourists.

Menu on the wall by the entrance 

The place used to be an old fishing equipment shop that has become the inspiration of their decor inside with fishing rods, hooks, nets along with hundreds of colourful cans of Portuguese fish which they sell.

Menu attached to fishing rod 

It was quite a hot day so we ordered light beer each which was really cold and refreshing. We were not sure what to order so we just ordered 2 x lunch set menu which consists of canned fish, salad, bread and a drink.

A plate of canned fish turned out to be tuna mixed with beans and sweet corns. We thought a basket of bread is to share between us and turned out that we get the basket each!

We were not expecting anything other than trying canned fish at canned fish serving bar so this was a very interesting experience to us. The bill came only to 12 euro for both of us, which is even better.

A few days later, we came back to this place for a very light snack/lunch again.

It was another hot day again, in fact the temperature reached 34 decree that day, so we ordered another beer each.

We had a look at menu, still not knowing what to order but figured that we would not go wrong if we pick the ones with thumb-up signs.

We ordered Sardines with red peppers and tuna in olive oil with bread.

The waiter then looked for our cans from the shelves - aha, those canned fishes are not just for display to sell but also to serve.... interesting ...

The waiter then came back with our canned fish ... basically they empty the cans onto plates, put lemon wedges and serve. Such a simple idea but it works at this bar.

We celebrated our wedding anniversary whilst we were in Lisbon and I am sure one of days we came here for lunch happened to be our anniversary and also went to A Cevicheria for dinner . If people asked us what we did for our anniversary, we say, "We had canned fish for lunch and raw fish for dinner" and can laugh about it, ha ha ha.

If you are in Lisbon, you should try this place, either for a quick, light and cheap lunch or late at night  with your friends for drink and nibble like tapas for an experience.

If you don't like fish, you can still buy Sardine shape chocolate for souvenir instead, ha ha ha.

That's all forks!