I have to tell you this story.
I just have to.
This is the pretext to tell you something in the text below. But I need to vent, and get this out of my system so here it is the…
Tale of the worst meal of the past season
Enter the salad: pickled, the menu said.
Overindulgent in a vegetable puree, perhaps made with the most tasteless root vegetable in the market, I would say instead.
Moving fast past this underwhelming entré, however, was a mistake. We should have left there and then. You know when things start badly with a goddamn easy fucking salad, they can only go worse.
Because then, came the aubergine.
The fucking aubergine.
The lack of quality vegetables in Portugal is reaching new lows, where even the usual providers (ecological producers, small-scale farmers) cannot supply the town with quality ingredients - or at least tasty ones.
The sad story of this bedazzled aubergine (see picture at the bottom of this article) which should have been oven-roasted but was rather probably oven-steamed is that if you imagine a Lebanese or Middle Eastern charred flavour to it, you should wash your imagination and scrub it of any possible flavour, salt included.
A speckle of labneh-like ointment could not rescue a flavourless plate which made me wonder if I was having COVID-19 again or if the cook did not know what to do with this vegetable.
I took a sip of wine out of desperation at that point, and finding it indeed had a smell and taste, I opted for the second. The chef didn’t know what to do in the kitchen.
Then, it is the turn of a tartare.
With pommes soufflees, the menu said pompously.
Here is a trick.
I ALWAYS try the tartare. Tartare is like a test: if you fuck up with raw meat and mustard, there is no hope of redemption.
Then the plate came by and to our dismay, the presentation was absolutely ridiculous.
Long threads of cecina were laid on paper, and on one end of these poor strips, someone in the kitchen had planted a round spoonful of tartare. Underflavored, overly salted, badly chopped meat - no pickle on sight, nor capers, nor whatever the fuck you put on a tartare.
Oh, they grated some cured yolk on top of the plate. The fucking audacity.
Should I inhale it? Should I cry? At that point, I was almost on the brink of tears, famished and terrified by what could come next.
Oh lord, they gave us tweezers, I realised looking closely at the plate.
Probably to twitch them and click them in anger á la Ramsey.
A tiny ball of tartare was placed atop a slice of cecina, and showered with cured yolk (another bane of our age): the suggestion from the waiter was to roll the cecina and wrap the tartare sushi-like, with said tweezers.
I could barely hold it together without laughing at the horrified sight of my better half, looking dead-eyed at the plate, in disbelief.
Of course, the combination was idiotic.
The intense flavour of cecina - which if it would have been good it would have dreamt of being jamon, but wasn't - completely overpowered the tartare.
The tartare was under-flavoured, with a timid sauce and no spice, no pickle, no punch.
The potatoes, if possible, were even worse.
They did not bother to change the oil, which by that point tasted of old Cadillac motors. They went back to the kitchen, intact - they were 5 or 6, one for each slice of sushi-cecina-tartare thing.
Whatever happened to edible food? I do not know, and neither did my next plate, of which I will talk next.
The view, however, was spectacular. One of the best locations in Lisbon to stay for a while and soak in the beauty of the river, together with the white yellow and pale blue hues of old town Alfama.
Back to business as usual
I mean, the usual shit this meal turned into.
Because at some point, in some ego-induced coma, the chef and their brigade decided that soaking thin strips of fries into what is normally a fumet could be a good idea, and why not add some shrimp?
So imagine a grey plate, topped with grey-sh foam, topped with grey-yellow thin matches of potatoes, topped with grey-pink shrimp.
This preparation is supposed to get mixed at the table before serving, and the ridiculous ingredients combination blended into a taupe glob of something looking like vomit.
I almost forgot
If you want to know which restaurant caused this text and see the pictures of the horrendous food, you will have to upgrade your subscription.
It does not matter now, as the Chef who produced this disastrous meal left the building (or was tested from it by the owners ) and thankfully so - and another chef is seemingly ready to take over.
And make this place another tourist thing.