My review here is going to a bit skewed as I think I may have gotten food poisoning here but I can't say with 100% certainty...although when there's raw fish hanging outside the window, you can't help but think that's the culprit. I was actually excited to try this place because it was across the street from our hotel and it got great reviews on Yelp (see, you can't always trust Yelp). Everyone said how it was a cute mom and pop place with friendly waiters and authentic food, so I was down to give it a try.
The decor was certainty local and no frills. I was a bit annoyed that the menu came in 5 different languages - while I know restaurants do that out of the goodness of their heart to accommodate tourists (this place was located right on the main street to St. George's castle), I find it a bit tacky and reeks of a tourist trap, but I'm willing to look beyond it. The waiters were very friendly and the menu seemed to offer typical Portugese food - which is basically bacalhau (salted cod) and other seafood. Up until this point, we hadn't had bacalhau, so I figured now was as good as any time to try it and we also got the seafood risotto, which is what most people seemed to be ordering at the restaurant.
The bacalhau was a large piece of pan fried salted cod served with thinly sliced potatoes on top of it. It was kind of like their version of fish and chips but with the chips being more potato chips than fries. I was happy to have tried it and it was a totally fine dish (it wasn't too greasy or oily) but it wasn't anything that I felt like I absolutely needed to have again. Next we tried the seafood risotto and it was an impressive dish. It was chock full of large bits of seafood and the broth was super flavorful. It was a bit on the salty side but overall it was a solid risotto dish.
Now mind you my mom and I didn't get sick until the next day and obviously we ate other meals after this that may have led to our sickness but I'll spare you the details and say based on what I felt and saw, most signs point to the seafood risotto being the culprit. The waiters there are quite friendly and are jokesters - they kept telling people that the seafood risotto was chicken risotto but it's kind of hard to pull that off when there is kind of a language barrier with some tourists. The table next to me totally didn't get the joke and actually seemed annoyed. In any case, no one else on Yelp seemed to have mentioned getting sick and I would never want to harm a restaurant's brand without total proof but I'll just leave my review here as proceed with caution and care. Total bill: 37 euros
A Cevicheria Rua Dom Pedro V, 129, 1200-093 Lisbon 4 Forks
For those of you who read my blog regularly, you know that I am a huge fan of ceviche. I love the citrus tang of it, so I was thrilled when my friend Van told me about this place in Lisbon. It's a little bit out of the main city center but its still in a pretty hip neighborhood with lots of cool looking bars and shops.
There already has a 30 mins wait when we got there but you can order pisco sours at the take out window and hang out by the 2 tables outside while you wait or they also direct you to a sister bar down the street if you don't want to table outside (clearly if I wasn't with my mom I would have chosen that option). The place is really cute and hipster-ish. It's bright and airy with a very clean aesthetic which is always appreciated when you're eating raw fish. There is a main circular bar and then maybe 5 or 6 tables behind it, so it is fairly small. We got a seat at the bar which was great because we got to watch the "kitchen" in action. I use kitchen in quotes because it was mainly this one chef plating a bunch of different raw marinated fish in a bowl. Unsurprisingly the menu here is mostly ceviche focused with a few other items like duck croquettes, beef tartare and a mini surf and turf sandwich. They also have a tasting menu which sounded awesome but my mom and I were super tired and still full from the late lunch we had, so we didn't really think we could appreciate a 6 course tasting menu (but it's a steal at 35 euros, so if you can do it, do it!). We opted for the pure ceviche (12 euros), salmon ceviche (12 euros) and the beef tartare tacos (7 euros each).
The pure ceviche was a more traditional ceviche made with white fish and had a fantastic sour tang to it as it was served with the classic tiger milk base. I was a bit concerned about this dish at first because it had these dollops of mashed sweet potato on top it which sounds kind of gross when its paired with marinated white fish but somehow it worked. Next I tried the salmon ceviche and while it was also good, I still preferred the white fish version. This had a smoked yogurt foam to it that I could have done without but I guess they were trying to fancy it up a bit. Lastly we had the beef tartare taco - it came in hard shell taco with horseradish mayo cream. Delicious although not as delicious as the ones we had at Minibar but still great texture and flavor to the beef.
This place was clearly happening and super popular with both the locals and tourists as it was non-stop people lining up to get a seat here. I wish I had more of an appetite to try more stuff here because the couple next to us got the tasting menu and it looked awesome. Definitely come early and hungry! Total bill: 58 euro with wine
Photo Credit: Yelp
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