11/21/2010 Saraiva's, Lisbon, Portugal

Quick insert before lunch. Our hotel room wasn't quite ready so we went across the square for a breakfast snack of coffee and pastry. This was a yummy little morsel.






Lunch.

We were on our way to the Gulbenkian Museum and saw this doorway. There's a note with their menu posted that says they have a mention in the Michelin book. It's not a starred but it is a bib gourmand. In fact here's what it says "Excellent, well-run restaurant decorated in a modern style reminiscent of the 1980s. Good choice of dishes on the menu, which features both traditional and international cuisine."   being the only food place that even looked remotely interesting on our walk we decided to come back here for lunch.

they served a nice selection of breads and crackers and we ordered...

shared between us

mine

matt's

sounds great, doesn't it? while we were waiting the waiter brings us this. 

we're eating at the bread and there's not much action and finally matt says to me "you know, that might be our 'pate with spices'. so yup, we dig into it.

the 1st bite wasn't that great but the more we ate it the less fishy it tasted. in fact it really wasn't that bad...

then our toast points arrived.


and the spiced pate.


.

matt's pork chops with mustard sauce. and french fries and spinach.

it had an ok flavor. not fantastic, but good. he did eat all of them and was able to help me finish mine.













i had the breadcrumb scallops, remember? well there was a little issue with the translation... what i got was this:

veal scollopini! with french fries. and spinach. LOL

good thing i like this. it was pretty good. tasty, not mushy and the meat not stringy.

it's an adventure, right?

one thing i did think was nice was they did a lot of table side prep. salads, mains, desserts...

we actually had no room for dessert and skipped it.

i definitely recommend this place to anyone visiting lisboa. but if the menu looks anything like (or maybe even if it doesn't) what is pictured above you might want to clarify with the staff exactly what you will be served unless you want to have an adventure.

we found out a couple days later when we had the chance to ask a server the portuguese word for scallops is vieiras. however the word 'scallop' in portuguese means a thin strip of meat.  so there the translation makes sense. The person doing the translation wasn't reading into context so translated wrong. kind of like those times when someone has translated something literally and the result is humorous or just absolutely wrong. oh well. i think it made for a fun story, and if you smiled if not laughed out loud, then you did, too.