Rosa's in Cascais, Portugal

Whilst we were in Lisbon, we decided to go to Cascais (pronounced 'Cashcaish'), a holiday resort, for a day trip by train, which departs from Cais do Sodre Station every 20 minutes. It takes about 40 minutes and the train runs along River Tejo to the West.

Once you get off the train, you just follow the crowds as everyone goes to the same direction walking through the pedestrian precinct with shops, restaurants - and quite a few Indian restaurants!

Religious shop selling figurines  - Josef, Mary and Jesus riding on a bike!

Even graffiti looks wonderful as wall art!

Walking through the paved street leads to the centre square with open view of the harbour....

Also notice a few British and Irish pubs ....

Look at the colour of the sky - pure blue without any clouds!!!

From here you walk along the promenade where you can see  sandy beach ....

... and boats, yachts and fishing boats beyond ...

Even King Carlos I is commanding a fine view ....

After that we walked around the town to explore a little bit whilst looking for a place for lunch ... of course, always thinking of food .... 

Portuguese tiles everywhere ... even for street signs ....

Being watched by a cat .....

Anyway, having consulted with my guidebook, we decided to try a seafood restaurant called Restorante O Pescador on R. das Flores near town's Fish Market. Unfortunately the restaurant was closed whilst the rest of other restraints were open with full of tourists. We could go into any of these restaurants however they were all in this rather narrow street with outside tables closed together without much of sea breeze coming through, we decided to look for somewhere with open space with nice breeze where we could sit outside.

Well, just as well, from R. das Flores we turned into Largo Cidade de Vitoria as that's where we found this cafe/bar/restaurant called Rosa's situated in a small quiet square.

 

 

 

 We sat outside, under the big tree that acts as a huge natural canopy ...

 

It was lovely and hot day but we picked the perfect table where we could sit, well shaded under this canopy with lovely sea breeze as natural fan to cool us down.

We ordered half bottle of vinho verde.... and what did we order for lunch?

I like the colour of table cloth, table mat, little flowers in the pot ....

.. Tuna Salad!  Nothing Portuguese about this but we thoroughly enjoyed this despite we originally had an intention to have good seafood meal at a proper seafood restaurant for lunch since we were a seaside resort.

And of course, we always have uma bica to finish off our meal!  Mmmmm.

I really like this table mat .....

After the relaxing lunch, we headed back to Lisbon by train again. We are not beach & sun bathing type people so this was fine for us however I can see attraction for people coming here for a quick day out from Lisbon for beach and seafood relaxation.  We did enjoy our day out to Cascais!

I envy people living in Lisbon - it's such a beautiful place with great food, great shopping, lots to see and do, with beautiful weather and now they even have easy access to lovely seaside resort within 40 minutes by regular train rides!  Not just that, I see from the train ever continuing clean and nice beach along River Tejo running parallel to the railway line, so they don't even need to travel that far from Lisbon for sunbathing.  Not that I like sunbathing (in fact I don't do sun bathing) however I do envy their good life ....

That's all forks!

Il Mulino, Ristorante Pizzeria in Lisbon, Portugal

I love fish and seafood in general and Lisbon is certainly the great place for that, however half way through our week in Lisbon, I was already feeling 'fished out'.  So, we decided to go for a pizza instead.

To be honest, we have been to 2 pizzerias in Lisbon in the past and we were really disappointed so I almost not bothered. I quickly did some homework, checking on TripAdvisor that seems to give good reviews so we decided to try this restaurant, Il Mulino (http://ilmulinolisboa.com), which is just off a square called Praca dos Restauradores. 

The location is perfect for us as our hotel is very near to this restaurant. There are lots of restaurants in this area, unfortunately most of them also hassle tourists to come into their restaurants to the extent that you can't walk without being approached by hard-sellers every 3 meters. This can really put you off; best to avoid eye contacts with them. My husband just put his hand on his stomach, indicating that he has already eaten or is already full and they just walk away.

Well, amongst such chaos, this restaurant does not hassle you at all.  The place was already busy but we were lucky to get a table without any booking.

Mulino means Mill in Italian ... that's why there is a drawing of a mill house on the wall...

 

Anyway, although we were fished out, we still like clams in garlic and wine so we ordered that along with a mixed salad for starters.

Clams came in a big pot - enough to share for two.

I know it's only a vinegar however I find Portuguese white wine vinegar tastes much milder than the one we get in UK, which is perfect for salad dressing. I think Portuguese white wine vinegar makes the salad refreshingly tasty.  I took a mental note to remember that I buy a bottle to take it home with me.

For main course we both ordered vegetable pizzas.  Pizza dough was light and crispy around the edges; it's just a normal vegetable pizza but we really enjoyed it.

The pizza was nice with chilli oil .....

We finished our meal with an Espresso....

Well, we really enjoyed our dinner - apart from clams, nice change from fish and traditional Portuguese dishes.  I saw a group of Italian family leaving the restaurant, giving some compliments to their waiter. If Italian thinks it good, the food here must be good....  I found their service was quire efficient, professional, courteous and friendly too.

Stepping outside the restaurant, you brace yourself to fend off all those hard-sellers again to go back to the hotel. Despite that, every restaurant now seems to be very busy with customers so their hard-selling tactics must be working after all....  It does give bustling and buzzing atmosphere which is interesting too to experience. Yes, we are on holiday in Lisbon. We just walk through the crowd with our hand lightly on our stomachs whenever hard sellers coming to our ways....

That's all forks!

Grilled mixed fish at Florets Das Escadinhas, Lisbon, Portugal

You may recall earlier in my blog that we saw this sign - The Best Sardines in Lisbon by a fish restaurant called Floresta Das Escadinhas on Rua de Santa Just in Lisbon.

Since they are claiming to be the best sardines in Lisbon, we decided to try this restaurant to see how good they are.  Trip advisor's reviews seem to be quite good anyway.

I think someone on TA might have said that this place is a family business, the wife cooks and the husband and their daughter do the rest. In any case the place seems to run very efficiently and despite the tiny kitchen area where all the grilling taking place being by the entrance, you do not notice any fishy smell or smoke - all sucked up by industrial extractor that works really well.

The excellent chef with red apron who does excellent grilled fish!!!

We decided to try 1/2 portion of mixed grilled fish - the menu is a shape of a fish.

Drinks menus are on bottles - beers on a beer bottle and wines on a wine bottle - what a good idea!

We just ordered 1/2 bottle of vinho verde.

We were waiting for our food to arrive .... all we could hear was the sizzling sound of grilled fish that the chef was attending to....  Can't wait for our food to arrive ...

This is my view from our table

Next thing, our plates of mixed grilled fish have arrived - wow, these are meant to be half portion!!!

From the left, there were mackerel, sardine, swordfish, squid and sea bream, accompanied by boiled potatoes.
If this is the half portion, I wonder what the full portion would be like ....

Anyway, they were grilled to perfection, well seasoned with salt and all you needed was lemon juice.

Before ...

and after ....

1/2 portion of mixed grilled fish is 9 euro, which is approximately £6.60!!!  What a bargain and the quality of fish was just excellent.

We would definitely go back to this place.   We were full so we just had uma bica, which was good too.

After that, we just wondered to the centre of Lisbon where all the trams are going by.

Lisbon is such a wonderful place - the weather is gorgeous with beautiful blue sky, buildings with orange roof tiles and traditional trams - everywhere is so picturesque and food is fantastic. What shall we eat next ....?

That's all forks!