Portugeating
Hi Chris. You mentioned you were off to Portugal soon to explore Lisbon and Porto and I promised I’d send along some food tips from my previous visits.
I’ll skip over the obvious. No doubt you’ll seek out pasteis de nata in Lisbon. And I’m sure someone will convince you to have a francesinha in Porto (perhaps at the tail end of a beery night out).
Personally, I think one of Portugal’s treasures is its tinned fish. Find a spot where you can peruse a selection and have a tin with a beer or a glass of excellent Portugese wine.
In Lisbon there’s Sol E Pesca, just down the street from the Time Out market.
In Porto there’s Prova, though the focus is there is more on cheese.
A lot of the best tinned fish will hail from Matosinhos, a northern suburb of Porto. I recommend making your way up there.
Check out the fish market there, which is also the former home to a digital design school where I spent a week teaching a few years back. At lunch time you can pick out a fish from the market and take it straight to Taberna Lusitana to have them cook it for you.
In the evening, every place in Matosinhos hauls a grill out onto the street to cook sardines. It smells wonderful!
Take every opportunity that comes your way to eat the local percebes—goose barnacles—hand-harvested in risky conditions from the Atlantic coastline.
There are lots of seafood restaurants in Matosinhos but I can personally recommend O Gaveto. Myself and Jessica were enticed in by the owner one evening as we stood outside admiring the fish tank. We ended up having an astoundingly delicious seafood rice.
We also witnessed a mysterious gathering of robed figures bedecked with chains who ate from a large pot filled with a dark mixture. When we asked our waiter about it, he told us it was “the brotherhood of the lamprey!”
Oh, and when you’re in Porto you absolutely must have tripas à moda do Porto—an excellent tripe stew that costs next to nothing and tastes great no matter where you get it.
If you’re eating out along the waterfront, there’s a spot a little further along from the usual touristy spots called Vinhas d’Alho. Get one of the outside tables if you can for a great view of the Port places across the river. Pick out one you like the look of and go for a Port tasting.
Even if you don’t go for a Port tasting, be sure to have a Port Tonico at some point—it’s like a more refreshing version of a gin and tonic, made with white Port.
That’s all I can think of right now. I’m afraid I can’t give you an address for the most memorable meal I had in Porto:
The most unexpected thing I ate in Porto was when I wandered off for lunch on my own one day. I ended up in a little place where, when I walked in, it was kind of like that bit in the Western when the music stops and everyone turns to look. This was clearly a place for locals. The owner didn’t speak any English. I didn’t speak any Portuguese. But we figured it out. She mimed something sandwich-like and said a word I wasn’t familiar with: bifana. Okay, I said. Then she mimed the universal action for drinking, so I said “agua.” She looked at with a very confused expression. “Agua!? Não. Cerveja!” Who am I to argue? Anyway, she produced this thing which was basically some wet meat in a bun. It didn’t look very appetising. But this was the kind of situation where I couldn’t back out of eating it. So I took a bite and …it was delicious! Like, really, really delicious.