Mirinda had an allergic reaction last night. She woke up, coughing and sputtering. Fortunately, she had some Clarytin handy. She blamed eating vegan ice cream because, along with the many chemicals in it, there was yellow food dye. We bought it by accident. We read ‘salted caramel ice cream’ and just put it in the basket. Annoying.
Just shows how bad fake food can be. They shouldn’t be allowed to call it ice cream if they are going to use stuff that causes an allergic reaction, and it’s not actually ice cream. Fortunately, there were no such reactions at the superb restaurant where we had lunch today.
First thing, rain poured down. It was like a milky curtain looking out of the front door. The clouds were thick and gloomy, which decided us not to go out anywhere first thing. For one thing we would have managed to get super wet and, for another, Mirinda was still feeling a bit sick with her cold.
So, we sat around the house doing various things until the afternoon saw a brief lightening of the rain and a bit of straining sun attempting to dry the porch tiles. Then Mirinda suggested we try a restaurant not far from us called Oficina dos Sabores.
It’s almost in a small place called Aveiras de Cima. I say ‘almost’ because it is just beyond the town sign and just after a motorway overpass. This is important because if you put the address in your satnav, you’re likely to not find it. This happens a lot and, apparently, the postal service in Portugal is pretty bad because the deliverers have trouble finding addresses.
Anyway, I have it sussed and we managed to find the car park and headed inside.
And what an excellent place to eat, drink and joke around with the waiting staff. In particular, the main guy who gets called whenever an English speaker turns up. He was very entertaining.
And the food was excellent. I finally tried bacalhau-a-bras which I thoroughly enjoyed. It’s a very Portuguese way to serve cod and, so I’ve been told, Amanda’s favourite. It is now my second favourite Portuguese meal. Obviously, grilled sardines comes an easy first place.
For dessert, I decided to have my second ever farofias which I especially loved because it was only one serving as opposed to the triple I had at Taxos the other night. Mirinda had an egg pudding (pudim de Ovos) which she said was delicious. An all round excellent restaurant that I would happily recommend.
You might notice in the photo above that there is a television on the back wall of the restaurant. At first, this alarmed me, thinking that I would never frequent a restaurant that had a TV on but, it seems, every restaurant in Portugal has at least one on a wall somewhere. No sound, you understand, just the picture.
Eventually, the rain drifted away, but that was too late to be doing anything. We stayed in the house and read, wrote and devised world conquering plans. A normal, rain affected afternoon, really.
And often cooking programmes – on the tv. Most odd.