Portugal Day Eight: Final Meal at José Avillez's Mini Bar

It’s our final night in Portugal and my cousin is dying to eat at Mini Bar. He’s been before and he cannot stop raving about the food. There is slight twinkle in his eyes when talking about the food. I’m a little wary, sometimes when people hype up things so much the reality falls short — and I sincerely hope that this is not the case.

It’s a late reservation. The popularity of the restaurant means that we are either eating at 4 p.m. like senior citizens or at 9 p.m. (I guess very European) like 20 something year olds. We arrive at the building, which houses several of José Avillez’s restaurants and they’re busy. Every single table is occupied and at a few there’s a wait. I’m taking a gander at all the delicious food that’s on display, but my cousin immediately moves straight towards the back where, hiding behind a “hidden door” is the entrance to Mini Bar — well, it’s not so much hidden as if you don’t know to look (and/or distracted by the food, like I was), you can easily miss the door. Despite the large neon lighting.

The interior of the restaurant is hard to explain — it draws to mind Moulin Rouge circa the 1890s, while the artwork makes me think of Baz Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge. They keep the lighting low and there is a stage, though when we are there no performance is happening. Even though we are eating quite late and have a reservation, we wait an extra half hour before we get our table. The staff feels bad so we are treated to a complementary “edible” cocktail — a literal rose with a single bite of a spicy rose margarita in the center. It is delicious and something that I would never have thought existed or possible (who thinks to make alcohol edible instead of drinkable?). It’s different for sure, like eating an alcoholic icy pop.

The food is designed to come in multiple courses and it’s recommended that we get an item or two per course — thus we are able to try a variety of the foods on the menu. We start with the Golden Hummus egg — it literally looks like delicate bird’s eggs sitting in a nest. So realistic that for a second, I think we made a mistake and ordered straight up eggs. I pop it in my mouth and the hummus starts to melt. So soft and savory. Well made and clean. We also opt for the roasted chicken skin with avocado cream, smoked cottage cheese and lemon. I have no idea what I was expecting, but it was not cracker thin chicken skin. It is however delicious and is not like any other chicken I’ve tasted before. It is far more delicate then one would imagine.

We follow that up with beef croquettes with truffle dijonaise and egg yolks, artichokes, parmesan and truffles. The egg yolks have been delicately cooked then drizzled in such a way that they are served as thin strands laying atop the artichokes with parmesan sprinkled on top. I’ve never seen eggs served this way. They are so delicate but packed with flavor. The beef croquettes are, however, surprisingly a bit of let down. They are still good, but compared to all the other dishes that have us salivating they pale in comparison.

We end the meal with the main show — a Beef Rossini with potatoes and a fried egg for me while my cousin orders a 60 Euro pasta. We really wanted to know what a 60 Euro (approximately 65 U.S. dollars) taste like. It tastes . . . like, well, normal pasta. Apparently it’s the scarlet shrimp that comes with it that makes it so special and pricy, but again, just tastes like shrimp.

The whole dinner is quite the experience and worth every Euro we spend. The food was delectable and presented in the most creative ways. It would be worth a return trip, to try other menu items and to see what changes each season.

Portugal Day Four: Driving Through Depression Aline

You know what’s not the smartest decision? Driving the entire length of Portugal during a depression — especially when the national weather services advise people to stay off the roads. Yet, that’s where I found myself. Driving five and a half hours from Porto in northern Portugal to Albufeira at the southern most point of the country. To be fair, we did not know when we set out that the country had been (and was also about to be again) hit by a depression — we just knew that there was going to be rain.

With how our schedule was laid out, we didn’t have much “wiggle” room to stay an extra day in Porto. Plus we were itching to move on to the next location.

There are a few things I learned on this drive across the country. One: Portuguese infrastructure is NOT designed to handle torrential downpours. Two: The Portuguese will either drive 30 kilometers under the posted limit or as though they’re trying out for the Grand Prix. And Three: don’t let the driver get “comfortable” while driving in a torrential downpour and attempt to DJ 90s nostalgic music. It’s just not worth it, no matter how much you want to listen to that random 90s pop-band.

There were times on the road that we could barely make out the car in front of us despite being maybe 5 feet ahead. We also passed numerous cars pulled over on the side of the road hoping to wait the rain out — according to the forecast models we were looking at, it wasn’t going to clear. It wasn’t until we got south of Lisbon that the roads cleared of other cars, thankfully. But on the plus side, the rain turned what would’ve been a long (and in certain parts boring drive) into a hair raising adventure. I just don’t recommend it.

After more than five hours on the road through some very questionable conditions we arrived in Albufeira to a much needed cocktail.

Portugal Day Three: Mandatory Tour at Palácio Da Bolsa

I think this is the first time I’ve ever been to a tourist attraction where they have mandated that people be on tours to see the site. At least, any tourist who speaks English, French, Italian and Portuguese must be on a tour. We really didn’t have the time (or the patience) to wait for the one in English — it was still hours away and we opted to join the soonest tour coming up instead. It happened to be in French. Neither of us speak French.

Hiding at the back of tour group, our plan was to smile and nod, go with whatever the others on the tour group were doing, hope that the tour guide didn’t ask us any questions and take a lot of photos so the guide didn’t see the confused looks on our faces when what she was saying didn’t register. Here’s what I learned from the actual tour of the Palace: our guide’s name was Katrine and she welcomed us to the palace. Here’s what I learned later googling the location: there’s a beautiful room called the “Arab Room” that took 18 years to finish. The complete decoration of the palace finished in 1909 and the building was designed by Joaquim da Costa Lima.

The tour was short, but honestly don’t know if it was worth it — I’d probably be saying the same thing if it had been in English. The architecture is beautiful but there’s not a ton to see inside. The rooms are mostly empty and thirty minutes —the full length of the tour — even feels long. The whole tour is a single floor and you only see five different rooms, three of which are empty of anything other than furniture (I assume we would’ve learned the history or at least some more context of meaning each room had we known French).

I’m sure we would’ve had a deeper appreciation had we understood what we were being informed of, at the same time, the palace feels like a place you could see without a tour guide.

Portugal Day Two: Learning Port wine is 20% ABV the "fun" way

On a rainy dismal day in Porto I learned the hard way — or maybe to some the fun way — that Port wine is 20% alcohol by volume.

Porto is THE city for Port wine. No really. All Port wine comes from the Douro valley in Portugal and that wine was originally shipped from Porto to the rest of the world. To this day there are numerous Port wine cellars that people can tour and afterwards can enjoy a tasting. To name a few there is: Graham’s Port House, Cockburn’s Port House, Taylor’s Port House, Porto Wine House (right on the Douro river), Burmester Cellar and many many more.

A Cockburn’s cooper keeping the casks in working shape.

We decided on Cockburn’s — mostly because they had an available tour the day we wanted to go — and settled in on what we hoped would be a fun experience. Boy was it a fun experience. The tour itself was very interesting. Not overly long but filled with fascinating information. Fun fact, all port wine must be stored in casks and Cockburn’s still employees coopers to make/maintain those casks — we got “lucky” and saw a cooper working on some of those casks while we were there. Although, it became something of a distraction because the hammering was so loud. Cockburn’s employees something like seven full-time coopers including a “master cooper.”

For those who are “wine” ignorant, or rather Port Wine ignorant, the tour also goes through the explanation of what makes a reserve wine, a vintage wine, the process of making port and just how much of it gets lost per year due to evaporation. They also explain the different kinds of port wine — a Ruby port, a Tanwy port (the two most common), white port and a rosé port — who knew rosé port existed? We may or may not have spent the rest of the trip looking for rosé port.

But the really fun part comes at the end of the tour. My travel companion and I decided to splurge a little post tour and sign up for a tasting with some of the “nicer” port wines offered. For us this meant we each got a flight of three different port wines. One was a flight of ruby port wines, each a different age — 20 years, 30 years and 40 years — and the other was a flight of tawny ports with the same ages, and one was also a vintage.

A port wine and ginger. Delicious.

Now it’s not like we had FULL glasses of port wine to drink — but what was given was definitely more than a sip. We opted to order some food with our wine as well as our lunch was very light. This ended up being a very wise decision. I ended up finishing off most of the samples — I mean when a 30 year old vintage is placed in front of you, it seems rude to not drink all of it. After having four of the six flight samples, we noticed they also offered port wine cocktails. They include a white port wine with tonic, a ruby port with ginger beer and the port and lemon. This is not something I’ve heard of before. Apparently they are becoming quite popular throughout Portugal. So naturally we had to each order a cocktail to see what all the fuss was about. Now on the tour, our guide did say that getting these was “dangerous to order” because they were very light and you tend to not notice the port wine in the drink.

I can now confirm that is indeed the case. Those cocktails are DELICIOUS and you really don’t notice the port wine. Making it far to easy to keep drinking them. Also, I think Cockburn’s tends to give a generous pour with their cocktails because they gave us each an extra glass of port wine to mix back in when our cocktails started getting a little “low.” After about an hour, the port house announced it was closing for the day and that we needed to start heading out. It was apparent immediately that I enjoyed the drinks a little too much. I may or may not have needed to hold onto my travel companion while leaving Cockburn’s — which if I didn’t already mention was on a very steep slope overlooking the river and the sidewalk was slick with fresh rain. It wasn’t until after a nap in the car back to the hotel, a nap at the hotel and a VERY starchy dinner at an Italian restaurant did the effects of the port wine * start* to ware off.

Long story short, go on a port wine tour! Just make sure to order some food for the tasting and maybe pace yourself.

Portugal Day One: Parking and Coimbra for Lunch

I sometimes forget how small the parking spaces in Europe can be. I mean they are very small. Some even look as though they’d fit nothing bigger than a clown car. On the way from Lisbon to Porto, we — my cousin and I — stopped in Coimbra for lunch. It’s about 120 miles north of Lisbon and a little over 75 miles south of Porto.

Driving through the city we were looking for a public parking ramp. Street parking was out of the question. Mostly since the street parking we could find were already two cars deep against the curb. Locating what we guessed was a public ramp we got excited and decided to park. Now, we are not driving a large car, it’s just an average size sedan. But while parking the car we had to instigate a 20-point turn to get the car into the spot (and then again to get out when we left a few hours later). The classic scene for Austin Powers comes to mind — half an inch forward, half an inch back over and over again until we were able to make it work.

While this comedic attempt is happening — a rather large Portuguese man comes out and starts to shout at us. Not aggressively shouting, mind you, but shouting nonetheless. In all reality, he was mostly likely either trying to help us or tell us that our car was not going to fit. But since neither the cousin or I speak Portuguese for all we know he could’ve been sharing the secrets to immortality or how to change lead into gold. We just stared at him like stupid Americans until he walked away. The park job was . . . serviceable. In the sense that while, yes, we were able to park the car, I may or may not have needed to crawl out of the passenger side window to get out of the car.

The photo does not do justice to the size of the dishes that eventually arrived.

Picking a random restaurant for lunch we decide order quickly — we are starving after all and haven’t eaten since our flight. The cousin decides on “Cod in Bread” while I opt for the “Rooster Rice.” Neither of us are expecting what eventually arrived at our table. The “Cod in Bread” ended up being cod, potatoes and onions in a bread bowl the size of someone’s head while my “Rooster Rice” came out in a taurine and appeared much more like stew. I don’t exactly know what I was expecting, maybe something similar to chicken fried rice or a chicken paella dish but not a stew.

It was delicious. Boney, but delicious. A lot lighter than I would’ve expected and a flavor that, while familiar I couldn’t quite put my finger on. It wasn’t until hours later while looking it up that I learned the the “Rooster Rice” is a traditional Portuguese dish where the chicken/rooster is cooked in it’s own blood with wine and vinegar.

That would explain the flavor I couldn’t quite explain. Well, one of the things I pride myself on while traveling is eating things I wouldn’t normally eat at home. And to be honest, I would actually order it again. It was tasty.