Dinner Experience #3 in Lisbon

Sigh – when will the food start tasting better?  Tonight we went in search of a restaurant that got some good reviews on the Internet about it’s Portuguese style chicken but only to find said restaurant deserted and quite pricey.  We decided to walk around and find something busier since going to the busiest restaurant we could find for lunch had worked out well.  We ended up at a restaurant where a South-African man (possibly the owner) kindly explained the menu and there were several people eating on the patio, including one couple deeply engrossed in their make-out session!  “PDA” (Public Display of Affection) is taken to a whole new level in Europe…. (horse is impressed as he edits)

Paul tried the roasted pork – another signature Portuguese dish we had heard about – and I had the calamari and prawns.  The pork reminded us of Chinese roasted pork but not crispy on the outside and not as tasty.  The calamari was not what I was expecting – apparently calamari here is grilled squid, not the battered and fried stuff we get back home.  It tasted decent but there was this jelly-like substance inside of it that I had to pick out because the texture of it made me gag.  We asked the South-African man about it and he thinks it’s the bone of the squid, but he wasn’t sure.  Whatever it was, it wasn’t good.  The prawns would have been tasty if they hadn’t been grilled with the shell on because that made them almost impossible to peel.

All in all, we would say this dinner was mediocre at best and we are really hoping things start to get better in the food department – that’s the main part of our travel budget!