For my final night in Lisbon, I went to the new hot spot from a Portugese star chef, Jose Avillez, who opened two restaurants in Lisbon-- this is the casual one, and it's already very popular and supposedly gets PACKED later at night. Originally, the waiter sat us down at a different part of the restaurant, which was dead, so we moved to the livelier spot. It was a dimly lit room with cool paintings on the wall and random shelves of beer/wine everywhere. We started with some delicious mini partridge bacon pies (mini tarts) and fried green beans. The green beans were very crunchy, but needed lots of salt. The bacon pies were very interesting-- crispy on the outside but soft and tender on the inside. Yummy appetizer. For my entrée, I ordered the lamb meatballs in a green curry with zucchini and thai rice. What a dish. I'm so used to having meatballs in tomato sauce, but I liked the change. The curry seemed to have flavors of mint and jalapeño, and tasted great with the juicy meatballs. The zucchini seemed a little bit too mushy to me, but it did mix in nicely with the dish. Also, after putting some of the curry on the thai rice, it turned a simple bowl of rice into a dish of it's own! That's how flavorful the curry was.
My dad ordered the Cantinho steak-- extremely tender and seared perfectly. My mom ordered the Alentejo black pork, which is a Portugese special type of pork coming from the eastern edge of the country. It cannot be found in the U.S-- so come and try it if you can. My mom's was very tender but needed a little seasoning. The dish did come with black beans, which I dumped into my bowl of rice-- like I said, a dish of its own. We also had sides of fries and delicious crispy hot potato rounds. I must say, this is my favorite restaurant so far, and a good way to finish off Lisbon. Overall, I give this hot spot 4 1/2 oinks. Next time, I'll be in Algarve, a more countryside part of Portugal. Good seafood...
-tdg
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