Codpieces --- Eating Out In Lisbon, Portugal

Tweet

When my husband and I were in Lisbon, Portugal, at Easter some years ago, we decided one day to cross the river Tejo by ferry. We had read that in Cacilhas on the southern bank were good fish restaurants. We went to a ferry station to buy tickets. I told the woman at the counter in my best Portuguese ‘two tickets, please’ and made a to-and-fro movement with my hand. Without saying a word she gave me two tickets. We went to the area where other passengers were waiting and boarded the ferry with them. When the ferry landed after a short ride of about 10 minutes we were puzzled. We could see a big street behind the ferry station, a bus terminal and ugly blocks of council housing. Something was fishy! We approached a man who told us that we were in Barreiro, not in Cacilhas. We had taken the wrong ferry! It is a dormitory town for Lisbon and ugly throughout. Where there any restaurants at all? Yes, he said there were some simple ones. We walked on until we came to a restaurant where we spotted the word ‘bacalhau’ (cod) on the menu hanging outside and went in. It was tiny, ten tables for two people each. It was run by a couple - the woman cooked, the husband served the guests. There were no other guests, we had the place and the couple’s attention to ourselves. The woman told us what was on offer. We understood that there were two fish dishes. We couldn’t decide which one to choose. She suggested we order both and share. That sounded reasonable, so we nodded our agreement. We ordered half a litre of white house wine and some mineral water. The man brought us bread, butter and olives as is done in all Portuguese restaurants. Then he served us four tiny fried squid with garlic as starters. We couldn’t remember her mentioning starters but we were content to start this way. They tasted good and occupied us until the woman came with a plate of four cod burgers. The cod was boiled and then mashed with spices, crumbed and fried. The side dish was rice and beans. Yummy! While we were eating we were wondering if we had misunderstood the woman before. Hadn’t she talked of two different dishes we should share? Well, never mind, two codburgers each were more than enough. We were finishing our wine and leaning back contentedly when the woman came in again carrying the other dish! Bacalhau = cod again, of course. The end piece of the fish with boiled potatoes; a boiled egg and chickpeas; parsley and raw garlic cut into small pieces came as a side dish. Where could we put all this? We were full already! We ordered another half litre of wine in order to make the food go down more easily and set to work. The woman had done her job in the kitchen and sat down at our table to talk to us. Of course, we had to have coffee after so much food. When we had drunk it and it was clear that we had reached the end of our feast, the man brought us two glasses of Moscatel de Setúbal, a rosé kind of wine, as a present. We hadn’t asked what the dishes cost before we started eating. We had the feeling we wouldn‘t be cheated here. When the bill came we couldn’t believe it: 17 Euro (then about 24,50 $) for the two of us! After a lot of shaking hands and hugging we left the restaurant, arm in arm in order not to zigzag too much on the way back to the ferry station thinking that taking the wrong ferry was the best mistake we had ever made concerning restaurants!