Food and Wine

Restaurant Week returns to Lisbon and the Algarve

Thursday, 04 March 2010 00:00

Starting March 6th you can enjoy Lisbon’s best food at more affordable prices. This is the city’s “Restaurant Week,” allowing you to taste some of the Portuguese capital’s most sophisticated (and expensive) menus for only 20 euros per person. It’s a way of attracting people who don’t usually want to spend dozens (or even hundreds) of euros at the most expensive restaurants and give them a chance to sample the city’s best food. Not all restaurants are part of the event, as the idea is to highlight the best of the top-quality choices. So there are 25 of them in total, with Casa da Comida, Conventual, Cop’3, Eleven, Mezzaluna, Olivier, and XL among others. No, you won’t be able to just choose anything if you want to only pay 20 euros. Each restaurant will have special menus at that price. Those menus include appetizer, entrée, and dessert but no drinks. One euro from each meal will then be given to charity. It is advised that you reserve your table in advance, and be sure to ask about availability, since some restaurants only offer the special menu at lunch time and others limit the number of people per table. And in April, it moves to the Algarve, from April 22 to May 3, with 22 restaurants. 

Meet the cataplana - slow food at its best

Sunday, 21 February 2010 00:00

The Algarve's copper cataplana slow cooker is unique. This pan is hammered in a handmade tradition - Its clamshell-like broad domed shaped dish is hinged together. Now, a new cookbook is about to be launched to help everyone try the secrets of Algarve cooking. The Cataplana Experience Cookbook designed to highlight this cooking utensil that is unique to Portuguese cuisine. The food is placed in the bottom half of the cataplana and then simmered together to help the flavors to grow. The cataplana was introduced to the southern Portugal region during the Moorish occupation in the 8th century AD. The cataplana is meant to be a steaming pan and is much suited for the many shellfish such as clams and mussels that are available along the southern coastal region. The ingredients are placed in the bottom half of the dish and the hinged lid is then closed, enabling the food to simmer together and the flavors developed during cooking. These days the pan has a much wider usage. Already used by many chefs, the cataplana makes it possible to cook seafood, fish, vegetables, meat, and even desserts, in a healthy and flavorsome manner. Classic and popular aspects of the Algarve cuisine. Xerém (cornmeal) and Cataplana dishes, fish and seafood, lamb or pork, oranges or the regional sweets and desserts are just some of the products visitor can taste around the Algarve.

Lisbon Fresh Fish and Flavors - Peixe in Lisboa

Thursday, 18 February 2010 20:51

The third edition of Peixe em Lisboa (Lisbon fish & flavors) will be held on April 10th to 18th in Pavilhão de Portugal, in Parque das Nações. This year the focus is on the Brazilian Cuisine, and  find at the event several of the most respected Chefs from Brazil:  Alex Atala, Claude Troisgros, Bel Coelho, Beto Pimentel, Mara Salles and Tsuyoshi Murakami.Peixe em Lisboa  will have 11 of renowned restaurants in the region of Lisbon. Those restaurants will be open in the Pavilion from noon  until midnight, as well as several thematic areas, with emphasis on the Gourmet Market. In the evening, in the auditorium, Portuguese and international Chefs will make culinary presentations with fish and seafood. Peixe em Lisboa is organized by the Tourism Association of Lisbon and the City Hall of Lisbon and produced by EV|Essencia do Vinho.

The First White Wine Alentejo DOC wine made from a red grape

Thursday, 18 February 2010 19:23

Ervideira, located in Reguengos de Monsaraz,  will  launch a white DOC Alentejo wine made from red grapes, the Aragonês varietal.  Duarte Leal da Costa and wine maker Nelso Rolo were successful in presenting the new wine to the Alentejo Region Wine Commission,  and getting the wine the DOC label – at first for Portuguese wine.  Aragonês is also known as Tempranillo and is spelled either as Aragonez or Aragonês in the Alentejo region.