Seafood and Bread to remember - Cervejaria Ramiro, Lisbon
- londongormandizer
- Jul 19, 2017
- 3 min read
As much as I love food, I won't queue for it. Not for longer than 10 minutes anyway, and that's only for a hot dog. So the recent upsurge of restaurants in London where you can't book and are expected to just show up and wait (I'm looking at you Dishoom and a multitude of Soho's eateries) annoy me.
I tend to be organised with reservations, at home and abroad and so it irks me when that option is taken out of my hands.
'We queued for about a hour in the drizzle, but honestly it's sooo worth it' No. That's not for me.
On my recent holiday to Lisbon numerous people told me as a seafood junkie, that I must visit Cervejaria Ramiro.
I'd seen it featured on Rick Stein's Long Weekends series as a popular place that people queue up in their droves to visit.
Urgh. Queuing.
But, turns out that if you are willing to have a slightly earlier dinner by Portuguese standards (and we were as it was our first night and we'd been up since 4am for an early flight) You can book a table! I sent an email - and a lovely man called Pedro organised a table for two at 7.30pm.
We arrived and walked smugly past this:
And were shown inside where it was hectic and a bit bonkers! There was a hot open kitchen, with big tanks of crawling lobsters. Waiters were presenting live giant crabs to delighted customers and it was noisy. We were a bit confused about where to go, as no one showed us, but eventually we were ushered upstairs.
Down a narrow corridor past another open kitchen with dishes upon dishes of delicious smelling seafood sitting in the window ready to be served we entered a dining room which was bright and airy.
It was still a vibrant environment ( this is not a place to come for a long, quiet, relaxing meal) but more spacious and inviting. Full of a mixture of locals and tourist like me, about ready for some BIG PRAWNS!
An ipad is plonked down in front of you where you can go through the menu in a number of languages to make your selection.
We naturally gravitated towards a French white wine as a safe bet - but they were out of our choice. The waiter brought us a Portuguese option which was crisp and perfect for our seafood feast. Much cheaper too. We drank many more bottles on our trip.
Between us we opted for some garlic prawns, clams and giant tiger prawns. Everything comes out when it's ready and there are no sides, just generous towers of buttered hot bread. No complaints here!
The garlic prawns were really meaty and the bread was used to mop up the mouth watering garlic and chili oil in the bottom of the sizzling dish.
In contrast the clams were really delicate, flavours of wine and coriander complimenting them beautifully. Again, all the juices at the bottom didn't go to waste.
Next came the giant tiger prawns, the ones I'd been waiting for to be honest and they were just heaven.
Juicy and sweet, the white meat came away in big chucks which I devoured with my fingers. There's a lot of that in this place, customers smashing shells with hammers and sucking juices out of crustaceans - I'm not entirely sure what the regular cutlery is actually used for. Banging on the table when you want more?
Months earlier at home watching Rick Stein on the telly Rob was delighted that after his dinner he opted for a 'preggo' for dessert. Which is a steak sandwich accompanied by a beer.
'Do you want one?' Rob asked me waving the waiter over.
'I'll have a bite of yours. Shall we get another portion of tiger prawns too?'
Because that's what holidays are all about.
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