Life Update
I’m interrupting the flow of blog posts I’ve already prepared for a couple of reasons. Some things are just too good to let sit. Anyway, I’ve had a slow work at week this week (that has already changed), but I’ve been taking advantage of that down time to get ready for the arrival of our household goods next week (fingers crossed). Yesterday we went into Matosinhos (past the port in Leixões where our ship will arrive) to go to Ikea to get some things that were in stock there but not at the Braga store. On the way home we decided to stop at a restaurant that we’d had on the top of our list. That was definitely a brilliant idea.
Ever since I first saw a post about Taberna de Lebre (the Hare Tavern) I decided I wanted to go there. Not only does Trip Advisor rate it as #2 of the 476 restaurants in Braga (#1 for Mediterranean food [they classify Portuguese food as Mediterranean]), it’s a family run affair that folks have described as the next best thing to home cooking.
Plus it has one distinct advantage - it opens at 4:00 for dinner. Fortunately, it was perfectly timed for our return from the Porto area and will be ideal for a “let’s go out to eat” at a normal 5-6 dinner time.
It’s a small restaurant, at least interior-wise, with quite a few tables set outside among the restaurant’s fig trees. Which our hostess (who is also the chef and a proprietor), was proud to tell us was organic and just now ripe. She plucked a few of them off the trees for us to try.
They were delicious! Especially once I found out that you can eat the skins too.
The proprietors don’t speak English, but that didn’t matter. She mentioned Trip Advisor and “fotos” (guess what that word means?) and I pulled up the photos they had online. From there, she pointed out things she recommended.
So we started out with melons and presunto, thinly sliced smoked meats that resemble prosciutto. We also settled for a wine from the Douro Valley (that fact will be relevant in a bit).
Nothing was done at a fast pace, and it didn’t matter for us. We were taking our time chatting, eating slowly as one should in Portugal. I’ve mentioned that we’re getting pretty good at the 2-hour lunch thing; well this was our first 3-hour dinner! Sitting under the fig trees (with an old sewing machine table as our table) was just so relaxing. Although it was hot, there was a nice breeze and when they started watering their extensive garden, it became even cooler!
As Ann and I chatted, the sun was slowly shifting across the sky and every so often would shine brightly on the fig leaves. Periodically I’d get up, snap an image on my phone, and get back to the conversation.
Dinner was a traditional Portuguese meal. Ann ordered the steak, which was prepared with a simple seasoning, and the tomatoes were lightly salted (when we raved about how great the tomatoes were, our hostess brought out a whole plate of them - which promptly disappeared). I had the Pastéis de Bacahau, which are salted cod fritters - they were superb. And that was supplemented with a traditional Arroz de Pato made Braga style.
Everything was amazing.
As we were relaxing a bit before dessert, the husband proprietor, who was doing the watering of the plants, came over. In his hands were two giant bunches of grape. Surprisingly, I could follow what he was explaining. Basically, he told us that the northern region (he mentioned a lot of the towns we’d passed through on our two road trips to the north) produces a different type of grape - vinho verde. And that they were better grapes than the ones used for the wine on our table, which was from the Douro Valley. Who are we to disagree with him? He had a very real sense of regional pride.
His wife, not to be outdone, came by a few minutes later with some plumbs. “You must take these too!” And of course, she took great pride in explaining that they were all organic!
We eventually ordered a dessert, and the hostess insisted that our dessert had to be accompanied by a Port. So while we were waiting for dessert, I took a shot back towards the main restaurant (note the lime trees in the background).
Soon our port arrived.
And not long after, our dessert. Which can best be described as Portuguese French Toast.
Need I mention it too was amazing. Perhaps my favorite dessert yet, with melted sugar on top.
When it came time to pay, I was wondering what a three-hour several course meal was going to cost us. Especially since we’d selected the most expensive wine on their menu (€13,50). When the bill came out to €47.50, my jaw almost dropped. Ann and I have a full dinner worth of leftovers, so that price is even more amazing. I gave them a good tip and told them we just moved to Fraião (it seems when I mention Fraião I get an even better reaction than saying Braga), our hostess’s eyes got wider. I told her we would be back!
And on the way out, we stopped to look at the two trees - one a lemon tree, another a lime tree. And of course you knew what the hostess did - plucked a couple of limes for us to take home.
I now have a new favorite restaurant in Braga (well, just outside of it - 5-10 minutes away from us).
Shifting subjects a bit, you might be wondering how the CAP Jackson is doing. Well, a week ago she was in the middle of the Atlantic.
And as she approached the coast of Africa heading towards the Moroccan Port of Tangiers, Ann started checking in on her status every half-day or so.
And guess what Ann found out today?
Look carefully at the “status” of the ship. Status: “ Not Under Command.” “What does that mean?” “I don’t know.” “Could it be tugs towing her?” “I know that to enter Puget Sound you have to have a special pilot, but that’s pretty far out for a tow.”
Well, Ann looked it up. You can see for yourself:
All I could do is laugh. We haven’t heard anything official, so we don’t know anything. But . . . it wouldn’t surprise us.
What is that saying - you gotta take the bad with the good? We’ll update folks once we find something out!