Sign in with Facebook
Traditional cooking in the Bairro Alto
As with the charming Pensao Londres, I have Gabriel (SOLODANCER) to thank for introducing me to this restaurant. Ingrid (Trekki) and I had dinner with him after the recent VT meeting in Cascais, and enjoyed traditional Portuguese cooking, excellent seafood and casual, bustling ambience. The service was maybe a little slow and haphazard, but we weren’t in a hurry, and such reasonable prices are bound to mean a compromise somewhere. And the queue at the door when we left suggested that others agreed with us. We all chose soup as our starter, although one symptom of the haphazard service referred to above is that Ingrid’s main course arrived before her soup. She and I both had the filling local favourite, Sopa de Alentejana, while Gabriel chose a lighter broth with orzo (small pasta shapes). My main course choice of Pescadinhas fritas com arroz de tomate looked a little disconcerting – I had expected fish fillets but got two whole fish sitting on a bed of rice. Luckily I am not put off my having the eyes of my food staring at me and tucked in happily, discovering it to be a delicious, firm white fish, though the rice was maybe a little bland in flavour. (Incidentally if you’d prefer to play it safe, there is a limited English language “Tourist menu”). Ingrid was meanwhile full of praise for her plate of clams. We all had a dessert (fresh mango for me, an orange pudding for the others), shared a bottle of the cheap but very drinkable house red, and paid only a little over €25 a head.
