mariscos
noun (Spanish and Portuguese)
seafood
I came to Lisboa in search of
quality seafood, thinking that my chances were pretty good. I ended up having one of the best meals of my
life, and with the exception of one meal, everything I ate during my trip was
fantastic, from cephalopods to custard tarts.
Combined with a decent ubiquitous brew (Super Bock), wild cherry liquor,
caipirinhas, and port wine, Lisboa turned out to be quite the gastronomic tour
de force.
Our first meal was at Casa da India,
a place we spotted on our way towards the bay the first morning I arrived. Halved chickens sizzled on a charcoal grill
in the front window, and the place was packed, most people seated cafeteria
style and others lining the bar. I
ordered a cup of seafood soup and grilled cuttlefish. The soup was rich and creamy, and the
cuttlefish was smoky and the perfect mix of crispy and tender, and accompanied
with a cilantro infused olive oil. Full
and with an ink stained plate, we all decided to head back to our
accommodations for a little siesta.
Post-siesta
and after some sightseeing later in the afternoon, we were on the hunt for a
dinner location, and I was fiending for some pulpo. But after encountering difficulty finding a
place that was the right proportion of 1. not shitty and 2. affordable, we
settled on a restaurant that seemed nice enough. We were given a menu and a plate of jamón and
bread was placed on the table, very appealing to hungry stomachs but also NOT
free. My pulpo was rubbery, and my friend ordered Portuguese sausage, only to
be given something that more closely resembled a monkey tail.
As such, I’d like to take this moment and pause for a Public
Service Announcement:
IF A RESTAURANT HAS A
MENU WITH 3 OR MORE LANGUAGES, DON’T GO THERE/LEAVE IMMEDIATELY.
Luckily, in that period of shame and frustration which
follows such a meal, we were able to bolster our spirits with ginja, a wild-cherry liquor typical of
Portugal, in a bar with bok choy lamps in Bairro Alto.
Back at the apartment and determined to not repeat our
mistake, we turned to the OG himself, Anthony Bourdain. We watched the No
Reservations episode on Lisboa, which in and of itself was a powerful
experience. I’ve talked about how
inspirational No Reservations has been for me, and so watching Tony walk by
places that I had seen that same morning made me feel both surreal and
accomplished.
We looked up one of the restaurants that he visited in the
episode, Cervejaría Ramiro. It was pretty
close to our apartment, so the next day we went for lunch. A lot of times you can tell if you’re in for
a good meal, kind of like a spidey sense, even just a quick scan of the place,
how many people, what are they eating, how do they look like they feel about
what they’re eating. We saw people with
large piles of shellfish, some with bibs, cracking, extricating, smiling.
There were also the tanks, in which swam the mariscos, all
shapes, sizes, and colors. If you know
that your food has been swimming 5 minutes before you’re eating it, you’re
#winning. Most of the food is priced by
the kilo, so we ordered a little smorgasboard, barnacles, spiky shells, clams
sautéed in white wine with garlic, and three scarlet shrimp, one for each of
us.
Appearing that order, we first used a little tool that
wouldn’t look out of place in a knitter’s basket to pull out the edible parts
of the shell, which tasted like the ocean.
The clams were superb, and we used the crunchy and flaky bread to mop up
the juices, washed down with swigs of Super Bock.
Then came the shrimp.
They were very large, very red, and very hot. After squeezing lemon juice all over them, we
each took our shrimp and pulled it apart, tail going one way and the head going
the other, letting loose a torrent of what is nothing more but nothing less than
brain soup, way up there on the list of best things ever to dip bread in. The meat of the tail was succulent and sweet,
like lobster but maybe even a bit better.
Afterwards, I felt like I was glowing, like someone was
putting just the right amount of electric current through my body, but I also
wasn’t quite full. We ordered three
steak sandwiches as “dessert,” something we saw Tony do, and we walked out of
the restaurant in the dreamiest of food comas.
As a word of warning, however, due to the pricing system, the amount of
money you’re paying can tend to get away from you, so be cognizant. Our shrimp were next level, but they were
also very heavy.
Later that day we had actual dessert, a pastry for which
Lisboa is famous, the pastéis de Belém.
Although the custard tart is served widely in Portugal and even Spain,
there is only one place that makes the dessert the “real” way, and it’s located right by the Tower of Belém and the Jeronimos Monastery, both worth
a visit in and of themselves. We had to
wait in line for 30 minutes to get four pastries, but it was so worth it. They give you cinnamon and powder sugar to
put on them, and the crust is flaky and croissant-esque. The custard filling is sweet with a little
zing and just the right amount.
Lisboa is a feast, both for the eyes and the stomach. Bom
apetite!
No comments:
Post a Comment