You gotta eat seafood in Lisbon

If you are fish or seafood lover, you must go to Lisbon, where you can eat fresh fish or seafood, often available at affordable price and from so many selections or varieties to choose from. What I love about Lisbon is that you can find so many restaurants that serve fish or seafood cooked simply but perfectly to retain the freshness and tastes of the sea.

Anyway, one night we were looking for somewhere different to try but not too far from our hotel. We saw this eaterie with menus in different languages on windows, clearly catering for tourists but somehow appealing to us because of blue and white azulejo tiles on the walls depicting some Portuguese agricultural scenes from the past. The restaurant was nothing fancy and foods on the menu seemed cheaper compared to other restaurants near-by. We thought, 'Surely they would not serve anything bad, after all this is Lisbon and this place is in area full of restaurants where lots of tourists come and go.'

We went in, sat down at a table and ordered beer. My husband ordered a bacalhau (dried salt cod) stew type of dish while I ordered calamari with rice. When the foods arrived, my face fell. They looked like school dinner. My husband bacalhau was full of fish bones although he said that it tasted fine while my calamari was tough and dry. "How can Lisbon go wrong with these!" I thought any restaurants in Lisbon serve fresh seafood and I just could not understand the logic of my calamari. I even started feeling sorry for this restaurant that served this quality of food, the chef who cooked it and the waiter who served this to us. My husband asked if I wanted coffee after the meal.  I just wanted to leave this place as soon as we could. ... Ok, it was cheap after all so maybe I should not have expected too much but how could any restaurant go wrong with calamari! Well, in the end we were the one to blame as we wanted to try this restaurant. The problem I have is that if I had something that I did not enjoy, that would ruin my whole day.

So, the next day, we decided to splash out and upgraded a restaurant. The restaurant was Ribadouro on Avda da Liberdade 155, Lisbon. This place is often listed in many guidebooks and seems very popular with tourists ordering lots of fancy looking seafood as well as locals standing by the bar ordering beer with quick bite to eat. Surely it can't go wrong this time.

Well, we ordered grilled tiger prawns between us. It was really extravagant but so as the bill! Still, it was our last night in Lisbon after all, and we had cheap but bad, bad meal the previous night, so that would justify it. And justified indeed. Our tiger prawns were really good. They were like mini-lobster, rather rich but very tasty.

Our grilled tiger prawns came with garlic butter sauce.

Close up - Mmmmmm, it was a seafood lover heaven!

Before cooking. Look at the sizes of tiger prawns!

They bring you fresh seafood to show you before they cook. Well, our tiger prawns were really big. We did not expect the platter to be so big so we also ordered clams cooked with olive oil, coriander and garlic for starter.  They were really good, perhaps a bit salty and lots of chopped garlic that could ward off vampires, however it was tasty and we mopped up the clam juice with lovely bread.

We also ordered a bottle of local vinho verde ('green wine') wine. I did not know what was the difference between normal white wine and green white wine at first, only to discover, after we came back from Lisbon, that it is a slightly sparkling wine, lowish in alcohol (from 8.5%), made from immature grapes, hence being called 'green'. I should have read the guidebook properly before we went to Lisbon.

Anyway, the same guidebook also informs me that if a bottled vinho verde (apparently many are not bottled!) says Alvarinho anywhere on the label, it will be a good one to try. Well, having checked my holiday photo now, it does say 'Alvarinho' so we chose the good one after all. I don't remember it was hugely expensive neither.

Vinho Verde that we had to go with food!

Well, after all these foods, our stomachs were really satisfied and we also had uma bica coffee, a small cup of strong coffee like an espresso. I was never a fan of espresso much but during our trip to Lisbon I became very fond of this Portuguese strong coffee and I also developed my fondness of adding sugar in it. Strong coffee and sugar were never my thing before. Now I am drinking espresso with sugar, alas, it's just not the same - I do miss uma bica in Lisbon....

Damn fine cup of coffee... (without a cherry pie)

I can forget about and forgive calamari disaster in Lisbon as I got so many delightful memories of food we had in Lisboa!

That's all forks.

Grilled Sardines in Lisbon

We are in Lisbon right now, leaving younger daughter Maria cat & house-sitting. The first thing we notice is that there are none of our pet cat, Yuki's hair that we have to brush off our cloths, keyboards on my laptop or between pages in a book or magazine we are reading. Back home we feel like using lint rollers to catch Yuki's hair day and night, dusk to dawn, all day every day. Here, staying in a hotel, there is none of that, it's even odd that we don't have to do that.  In fact, we don't even see any cats at all since we have arrived in Lisbon. Not even a stray. Very strange, considering there are so much fish in Lisbon.

Ever since we arrived on Sunday morning, we have been eating fish, every day for lunch and dinner. We fear we may turn into a fish, may start growing scales and fins! However, fish and shellfish are really good here - it's seafood lover's heaven. You get really fresh seafood, cooked simply to respect natural tastes of ingredients.

A lots of restaurants seems to be closed on Sunday but we managed to find a fish restaurant named, Restaurant Pessoa at Rua Dos Duradores 190, Lisbon 1100. This is not necessarily a cheap restaurant, considering you could find many restaurants that offer reasonably priced food in Lisbon however not exceptionally expensive neither.

Since we are in Lisbon, we got to eat famous grilled sardines. It was not on the menu but we asked for it anyway. "12 Euro per person, it is ok?" the waiter asked. We had no idea how much a plate of grilled sardines would cost but we just ordered it anyway.

Those who know me well must be able to picture me clapping my hands with excitement when the large dish full of grilled sardines arrived at our table. Each sardine was already fair size and there must have been 14 or so on the plate, along with boiled potatoes and some salad. We were hungry so of course we ate all up without any problem. It was really delicious with lots of rock salt.

Before ....

and After .....

We also ordered a half bottle of dry white local wine. We were about to order house white but the waiter to us "not that with the dish" and brought this wine. It was only about 6 euro and not bad at all.

Inside of the restaurant is decorated with white wall and typical azulejo tiles. My guidebook informs me that azulwjos takes their name from either julej, the Persian word for 'blue' or az-zuleyha, Arabic for 'polished stone'. There is no paper table cloths and napkin nonsense - they use real line serviette here.

We thought we were the only customers but by the time we finished eating, people started arriving. Most of them seemed to be local people coming for family Sunday lunches. I wonder what they would be ordering...

The place does not look that appealing, in fact it's rather shabby and run-down looking however most of restaurants are in Lisbon; looks can be deceiving, in fact.

This is the beginning of our 'peixe' in the city, here in Lisbon.  I am afraid you will see more seafood blog from me for a while.

That's all forks!