1 de maio, Rua de Atalaia 8 Bairro Alto Lisbon, Portugal


Rua de Atalaia 8 Bairro Alto Lisbon, Portugal

213 426 840

A high proportion of our fellow diners appeared to be French in this small and crowded restaurant. We started with a mixed salad (huge) then we each had a massive serving of our chosen fish. Trouble is, I can't remember the name of my fish, and once again L and I discussed the fortune to be made by the first person to produce a multi-national food dictionary. You'd have columns for each country, so: hake (UK) = garoupa (PORT) = grouper (US) = merluza (ESP) etc. The waiter didn't know it's name in English, or the name of the dark green spinachy vegetable, which we loved. My fish was actually raw inside, but the waiter dealt with it so swiftly and courteously that I didn't mind at all. Service Recovery - done properly you end up almost glad things went wrong. Replete, we awaited the inevitable big plastic ice cream card, but it didn't come. Instead, there was a selection of home made desserts on display! Formidable! L had a fruits of the forest tarte and I had a huge comice pear in red wine. Contrary to popular opinion, this dish was not invented by yuppies in the eighties, my Mum used to make it a lot, she learned to make in the early thirties, only she always added cinnamon. The Portuguese version was good, but frankly, not as good as my Mum's. With a bottle of Vinho Verde, the bill came to about $6,000 (just over £18) 8th May 2000 DM