Day Three: Dinner at In Diferente
What’s different about this trip is that I made reservations ahead of time at some nice restaurants in each city. In Porto, I reserved a place called In Diferente which we found in the Michelin guide. Chris recommended looking at the “bib gourmand” restaurants which are not quite a Michelin star experience but sort of like a runner up. Amazing food, but more casual and less expensive.
In Diferente was located a little outside of the main town area, we took a 15 minute Uber and ended up on what looked like a suburban side street but as soon as we walked in, it was 110% fine dining. The team of three waiters were extremely attentive. We decided on the two tasting menus and wine pairings so we had 10 items altogether! Here goes!
Amuse Bouche: bread with tomato butter and regular butter and rosemary butter and special fancy olive oil, a puffed crispy bread cracker thing with veal tartare and mustard inside, and the one with the green leaf on top? I have no idea. Not because I don’t remember but because of a language barrier…I wrote in my notes: game meat? Chicken? Lime? It was a smokey meat with a lime aioli on top, very good.
The first course was octopus carpaccio with coriander sprouts and olive tapenade for me and cray fish soup (like boullaibaise) with daikon radish dumplings, mango, green curry sauce for Chris. Just before this course came out, I said “I have to remember to take pictures” and promptly forgot. However this is the only one I missed!
Next: Foie gras with brioche bread, vanilla foam and creme anglaise, paired with port. It was super sweet but definitely was cut by the fat of the Foie. I added some salt to make it a little less sweet. Chris had Rump which is a Portuguese air dried meat (like a dry aged carpaccio) that came with melon, egg and black truffle gel. Super elegant and rich.
Third Course: Sea bass, seaweed rice, shrimp, mushroom white sauce for me. Shrimp muqueque Brazilian dish rice noodles shrimp bisque and coconut milk for Chris. I liked his better, so we ended up switching :)
Fourth course was meat! Iberian pork Wellington for me and veal for Chris. Whatever the little orange dots on mine were my favorite. I love a sauce. Definitely need to up my sauce game when cooking.
I loved the intermezzo which was a take on an aperol spritz! It was an aperol granita with champagne mousse.
Final course…I looooove dessert!
My pastel de nata was unlike the typical pastry that is sold everywhere you turn here. Instead it was soft on the outside and gooey on the inside, served with almond ice cream. Chris had a cheesecake that was more literal in that it was a cake of cheese served with a passion fruit ice cream. His came with dessert wine and mine with port. We shared both but I really prefer dessert wine. Actually I think we both discovered that we don’t love port (lol) but the gigantic bottle was cool.
