movingtoportugal

This week I am continuing the personal A to Z of Portugal that I began last week. Today, I present you with letters D to F:

D is for Dona Barca:

Dona Barca in Portimao is one of our favourite Algarve restaurants. We found it thanks to a guidebook whilst on holiday, long before moving here. The place has changed a fair bit since we first visited. It’s fame and popularity amongst tourists and locals alike has led it to expand into a larger area in the pretty square of Largo de Barca, and corporate touches like postcards and logoed uniforms have crept in.

Dona Barca Restaurant Portimao

It’s still the same place though, offering wonderful fresh fish (especially sardines), great house wine in generous carafes, and low prices. For more details, you will find a review of Dona Barca on my Food and Wine Portugal blog.

E is for Espanha:

Now I realise that Espanha may seem a strange choice for a Portugal A to Z, but it feels right to include it amongst my personal choices.

When we first moved here, I used to find it tremendously exciting to see “Espanha” on the road signs. After living in the UK, being somewhere where you can just set off in the car and keep driving until you are in a whole different country gives you a wonderful sense of freedom (and I know that we could have always driven to Wales or Scotland – it just doesn’t feel the same, somehow).

Seville - Just Down the Road from the Algarve

We often head to Spain for weekend breaks, when we would previously have headed for Cornwall or Norfolk. We have enjoyed cheap weekends in Seville, Marbella and Cadiz already, and are soon off to see what Jerez is all about. Espanha, being only 20 minutes away, is also our go-to destination for taco shells and Iberico ham (Carrefour), tealights and furniture (Ikea), and langoustines by the sea (Punta d’Umbria).

F is for Farturas:

The arrival of a van selling farturas and churros in Portugal usually signifies that some kind of local event or festival is about to happen. Farturas and churros are the southern European interpretation of donuts. Churros are essentially the same as a UK seaside donut, but they are squeezed into the hot oil with a piping bag and served as straight sticks, rather than rings.

Farturas and Churros in Portugal

Farturas are similar, but stuffed with a filling, usually a nutella-style chocolate sauce or something fruity. Visitors to Portugal should make a point of trying one of these sweet treats – but try to get them while they’re hot – a cold fartura left sitting on the counter for a while is not especially pleasant!

This time last year I was complaining in this post, about the chill in the Algarve air – which is interesting as I was doing just that when I spoke to my mother on the phone this morning. The headline temperatures do not tell the full story when you live in accommodation with only reverse-cycle air-conditioning to remove the chill from the air. Also back in January 2011 I had just discovered Brisa do Rio – probably still our favourite restaurant in the town of Tavira. It’s hard to believe it was only a year ago, given the amount of times we have eaten in there since!

Image Credits: Visit Portugal, Renata F. Oliveira.

Technorati Tags: dona barca portimao, farturas, portugal a to z

This week, I am pleased to be joining in with a rather fun blogging project, started off by Julie Dawn Fox at her own Portugal blog.

The idea for this leads on from the personal A-Z that some of us created after being awarded the Awesome Blog Content award earlier this month. Julie suggested it might be fun to each do a personal “A to Z of Portugal.” Several bloggers have joined in from various countries, and I am pleased to be getting involved myself.

My Personal A to Z of Portugal

As I tend to post on a weekly basis, I am doing to do a few letters at a time, and intersperse them with my regular posts. So, as a starting point, this week, I present you with letters A to C of my personal A to Z of Portugal.

A is for Aguardente.

Every country seems to have its own firewater-style spirit – the bottle that gets brought out at the end of a big meal. Greece has ouzo, Italy has grappa, and Denmark has aquavit. Portugal has aguardente.

Although this is a personal A-Z, I have to admit I am not a fan of this beverage. One shot has the raw power to change the course of an evening; any more than that can write off the following day as well!

We purchased a bottle of aguardente when we moved here, the rationale behind it being nothing more than “when in Rome.” Well, over two years on, I can confirm that all we have used the bottle for is to flame cook chorizo (a common use for aguardente), and to attempt to draw ticks out of my mother-in-law’s dog.

Interestingly, you do sometimes see some very posh looking, expensive aguardente on the shelves around Christmas time, so perhaps there are versions that don’t look and smell like paint stripper. So far though, we have yet to try them….

B is for Barbecue

I was talking about looking forward to BBQs on the terrace as far back as my sixth ever post on this blog, long before I even moved here.

We adore BBQs, and put a lot of effort into them. We are no strangers to butterflying a leg of lamb, or spatch-cocking a chicken and basting it with beer as it sizzles.

BBQ in Portugal

Sadly our time in London was never barbecue-friendly. When we eventually moved to a house that had outside space, our snooty elderly neighbour complained about “cooking smells” and slammed her windows shut whenever she so much as caught a glimpse of the grill. In the end, we just didn’t bother.

In the days before we got here, thoughts of sunny barbecues got us through the 16 hour days and the moving stress….and even years on the novelty hasn’t worn off. We barbecue at least weekly, all year round. Home made sauces, woodchips, bastes, dressings, even chickens upended on beer cans. Portugal and BBQs, for us, go hand in hand. We’re even having one tonight!

C is for Coffee

I never really drank coffee before I moved to Portugal, but the lure of a tiny, super-strong bica (espresso) has proved too

Portuguese Bica Coffee

much to resist.

I probably only have two or three each week – after meals out, and always after our market shop on a Saturday morning. It’s a wonderful little ritual, and a super-cheap luxury, rarely costing more than about 60cents.

Insiders Tip: Portuguese bicas are also sufficiently strong to completely cancel out that final glass of wine that you never should have had during the meal!

IMAGE CREDIT: Ricardo Benardo

Technorati Tags: portugal a to z, portugal BBQ, portugal coffee