Day One: Dinner at Cais da Vila

After our not-great lunch, Chris was not hungry for dinner because he cannot eat nonstop like me….most people can’t I guess!

However, there wasn’t much else to do and it was getting dark so we went to this restaurant anyway that was recommended by a friend of Chris. We said maybe we would just have a drink and an appetizer but ended up doing a six course tasting menu. Well, I did a six course tasting menu and Chris had a few bites here and there.

The server started by bringing us napkins with tongs. Typically seeing tongs you would think the towels were hot…but no, just regular napkins served with tongs!

First course: amuse bouche of breaded and fried sausage hamburger, endive with eggplant and cottage cheese, and an avocado tartlette which had something about trout and shrimp and passion fruit. All delicious and a promising start to this meal!

Next was a veal carpaccio with pine nuts, and Mayo, and some sort of parsley apple cucumber gel.

Then the most interesting was the tuna tatami course. The different sauces are a beet sauce (pink) and ponzu sauce. The round item is a cucumber jelly, and then the mousse looking puff is a mango saffron ice cream over chia seed and topped with curry. I never thought to eat ice cream with tuna but it was SO good!

Fish course was brill with a sea urchin sauce and saffron foam with cous cous. The mushrooms on here were my fave, otherwise this was the least standout to me.

Course five was veal topped with bone marrow, a delicious mix of mushrooms and asparagus and some crispy potatoes.

Finally, a lovely dessert of white chocolate mousse with almond ice cream over a berry compote type of sauce!

We did all this with wine pairings but I honestly don’t remember what went with each because they are all Portuguese wines.

It was a lovely evening and we were the only people in the restaurant for the entire night so the place did not make any money last night but it was a fun private experience!