If you’re hungry or easily tempted, this post may not be for you. Even doing this post up is quite difficult for me!
We’ve relied quite heavily on 2 very reliable sources for selecting our meal destinations:
- Tripadvisors reviews
- Fabulous foodie instincts supported by good eyeballing, a keen nose and overall smarts
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O Tasco Do Vigario
Cost: € 38 (3 mains, a cake, bread basket with 4 cans of pate and 1 beer)
Petisqueira Conqvistador
This place was pure magic for me. The waiter, Anders, is by far the most fascinating waiter I’ve met. Attentive, professional, great approachable attitude, knowledgeable and overall the man we want to partner with if we ever open a F&B empire in Singapore. The busker, Raphael Racor, completely serenaded up with his covers and originals through the night. Both nights had Coco#2 sleeping off effortlessly in my arms after some food, leaving me to enjoy my sangria, music and some personal time with Coco#1. While this is a food post, I’ll make an exception for Raphael and do a plug for him here as he was just that spectacular (listen to his music & buy his digital album here, no affiliation apart from pure admiration)
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From left to right:
(1) Oh did I say the codfish was my fav? This is definitely my favourite – octopus with preserved vegetables, pumpkin and carrots. It was just a heavenly dish and served with a liberal dose of olive oil and slightly charred garlic.
(2) Slow-cooked rabbit stew. It was recommended however it wasn’t my favourite. The dish itself has a very interesting taste and the texture of the meat was a little chewy. This dish, I wouldn’t necessarily order again. I think I like my rabbit in the form of a satay stick!
(3) Mr.C’s favourite dish and quite clearly a winner – vegetable soup. Even in the hole-in-the-wall types, the vegetable soup is simply delicious. The base of the soup is thick as it’s pureed potatoes and typically has the preserved vegetables and cabbages as chunks.
(4) Dried cod @ Bacallhau salad. To say it was salty would be stating the obvious given that it is salted dried cod that forms the main ingredient. I can’t tell what else was in this dish, I was distracted by all the good food, the wonderful music from Raphael Racor and my kids. Would I order it again? Yes, absolutely.
(5) Ameijoas clams. Oh was this an absolute treat, cooked liberally with olive oil and garlic. Chewy and almost sweet and totally went down in just a few minutes.
(6) Ribs, coleslaw and punched potatoes. Not as great as the seafood in my opinion but still a standout dish on it’s own.
(7) I’m trying to make up for the lackluster description in the above picture by the very good picture here 🙂 If this dish had feelings, he’s be feeling pretty good at this point 😉
Cost: € 45.60 (the average we spent over 2 nights at this place)
Pasties de Belem
A rite of passage for anyone headed to Lisboa, the most popular pastry from the most popular shop. We did try the egg tarts from two other places but there is a reason Pasteis de Belem is as popular as it is. It’s supposedly since 1837 but I think it’s really because the taste is much more balanced compared to the rest we have had. The sugar content is less and the pastry itself is crispy. This goes down perfect with a strong cup of coffee. Don’t be too deterred by the long queues at this shop, they move fast.You can choose to eat in the shop of do a take-away and head over to the park opposite Jeronimos monastry where you can eat in the open and appreciate the architecture of the monastery, the grand water fountain, the greenery around you and the wonderful sun.
Cost: € 6.90 (a box of 6)
Casa Ideal, Trafaria
There was that day that we hopped on a ferry aimlessly and found this wonderful place called Trafaria and this wonderful little restaurant for lunch. We ordered this interesting vegetable soup with a toast floating on it and an egg in the middle, very delicious. Then there was the sole fish, grilled to absolute perfection with boiled potatoes. The last dish is a traditional and authentic Portuguese meal called Bitoque – steak and fries with an egg.
Cost: € 45.60 (2 mains, 1 beer, 1 bread basket, 1 soup)
Dinner over Fado Music
This was a random place and it isn’t a place that blew us away, food-wise. The key highlights of our dinner one of the nights over Fado music. Grilled seafood. This was the only place where the portions were smaller than what we have been getting at Lisboa. Potentially the touristy aspect of listening to Fado music over a meal has a part to play in this, got to pay the entertainers! The entertainment though, was top class. Fado music is music for the soul, you don’t have to understand what is being said as it’s in Portuguese but you can feel it. The emotions range from soulful to fun with the diners asked to join in on the singing, the clapping and the cheers. We had 5 different vocalists through the hour long show and they were all very good. Thee were 2 gentlemen on the musical instruments and music just flowed out of their equipment effortlessly.
Cost: € 45.60 (2 mains, 1 beer, 1 bread basket, 1 soup)
Principe do Calharta
Cost: € 42.30 (2 mains, 0.5 l of Vinho Verde, bread basket, cheese, 1 starter and 1 soup)
Casa Piriquita
Cost: € 4.10 (2 desserts and 1 coffee)
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Restaurante Carmar
Yet another phenomenal meal that was unplanned but truly attributed to the killer food instincts. This isn’t anything fancy, very local looking and perhaps some might find it questionable even. Anyway, good enough for the SippingCoconuts. It was love at first bite with the prawn and squid rice. My eyes widened and I almost cried out in delight at the gastronomic spectacle taking place in my mouth.
I mentioned above on the grilled codfish that there was the one time it was better than the first day we had it. It was here, as it was charcoal grilled. Again, the Portugease are very generous with the olive oil. I must give praise to the Sangria at this shop as well, mind-blowing. The benefits of always having water bottles and this being the end of the day, the water bottles were empty. Let’s just do a sangria for the road as well 😉 Totally forgot to capture that moment!
Cost: € 42.35 (2 mains, 2 soups, a bread basket and 2 litres of sangria)
Marisco na Praca, by the Mercado at Cascais
Our priciest meal in Lisboa was at Cascais. Cascais is right by the sea so we couldn’t resist going all out on the food. Truly fresh seafood and reminds us why we need to be better at getting our meals from the sea ourselves or work hard to be able to pay for expensive meals as this.
From left to right:
(1) We were on a hunt to satisfy a bucketlist item for Mr.C – the freakish gooseneck barnacles. It was as described, scrumptious and with a taste of the sea. A chewy texture, not unlike a squid but probably closer to that of a clam. It was quite a definitive dish.
(2) Oysters. A treat for me from Mr.C as I didn’t want to pay € 2 a pop but I gracefully accepted when it arrived at the table and my, oh my, were they just perfect.
(3) A cold squid salad cooked to perfection.
(4) Have you met limpets before? Neither have we but good ol Mr.C, ever the sea enthusiast, knew it. His source of this wonderful knowledge was he watched Bear Grylls eat it once on his show on Netflix.
(5) The most delectable prawns ever. So fresh and firm and just so tasty. I don’t even like prawn heads but there I was, sucking every prawn head out. Yet again, olive oil and garlic along with salt seem to be the stuff of dream teams when it comes to fresh seafood in Lisboa.
(6) This was an expensive place so of course they classed up the classic seafood rice dish with some lobsters. It was delightful, needless to say. While I saw it was the priciest meal, it wasn’t exorbitant for the value we got. This pot of lobster and seafood rice was €20.
Cost: € 67 (The entire feast, 1 beer, some bread and 1 coffee)
Are you hungry yet? 😉
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