



Every time I want to travel abroad, I make a list of restaurants, cafes, bars and places to go to. I put a lot of focus on my restaurants list, I like to choose the local and hidden small restaurants, because I travel basically to eat. Through food, I get to know different aspects about the country or the particular city I’m staying at.
This time I went to this local restaurant where there were only Portuguese people, they were quite loud and excited about the football match that was going on, they chanted and banged the tables from time to time. The guys next to our table apologised and continued chanting. We said it’s ok and we actually banged our table with them. They laughed and raised their beer glasses.
I ordered the famous Portuguese grilled codfish and my boyfriend ordered a Portuguese stew. The portions were huge and I got shocked by the mount of food we got, we barely ate. The waiter came and seemed worry, I said ‘the food is very good, but it’s for ten persons’. He relieved and took away the plates and came back with the dessert menu, I choose bolo de bolacha. It was a big cake with layers of buttercream, I ate some bites for the tasting’s sake. The mood was chaotic, yet joyful. There were seven waiters in the small restaurant. If it had been in Sweden it would only have had one waiter. Spilled beer drowned the tables and bread flew across the floor! The guys continued chanting and some people didn’t get a place inside the restaurant, the waitress gave them beer glasses and kept serving them while they were standing in the street cheering the people inside the restaurant.