Postcard from Portugal…

Francesco and I have been enjoying Lisbon, especially the sunny days, mild temperatures, and fresh breezes blowing in from the river and sea. Our apartment has a spectacular view over the Tagus and it is mesmerizing to watch the cityscape evolve as morning light fades, the noon glare bounces off red tile roofs, and the gentle haze of dusk finally settles over the darkening scene.

The city is also a gastronomical prize with wonderful restaurants specialized, of course, in Portuguese regional fare, plus cuisine from its former colonies in Brazil, Africa, India, and the Far East. On New Year’s Eve, for instance, we dined at the Goan restaurant Arco do Castelo, where a pork dish called balchao was simmered with tamarind and spices and the chacuti chicken cooked in a sauce of a rich coconut cream.

Exotica aside, the regular Portuguese fare we’ve encountered is proving equally scrumptious – and the wines are out of this world, including crisp whites, tawny reds, and famed Portuguese Rosè Mateus.

At Santo Andre, a little taverna down the street where we sat at a rickety table swathed in plastic, I tried a dish of cubed pork simmered with clams and white wine, said to be standard in the nearby winegrowing region of Alentejo, while Francesco gobbled a plate of traditional bacalhau, codfish and potatoes crusted with breadcrumbs and baked in cream.

At the Bota Alta (High Boot) we tried costeletas fumados à Algarvia, a dish of smoked ham slathered with almonds and grated garlic, which was preceded by the inevitable fromage blanc, bread, and olives, and accompanied by a deep red wine from the Algarve region.

But perhaps the most breathtaking place, because of the shock of the décor, has been the Casa de Alentejos. If you make it down the Rua das Portas de Santo Antao, with its paddle-line of barkers trying to lure you into one of the restaurants that line it, you enter a building through an almost hidden door and find yourself in a Moorish courtyard. We went there because Francesco read about it in Antonio Tabucchi’s novel Requiem where it figures in one of his hallucinations. Upstairs from the flamboyant courtyard, you cross through huge ballrooms that look like decaying sets from Titanic and then enter a long room lined with amazing blue and white tiles. There we enjoyed unpretentious homemade lentil soup, a broad bean and chourizo salad, and tasty blue fish cooked with tomatoes, vinegar, garlic, and bay leaves - in the style again of provincial Alentejo.