There were two things that I had to get while I was here in Portugal: ginja sour cherry liqueur and piri-piri chicken. Fortunately, there were three well-known places serving those within a few minutes walk of each other. Between the two rival ginja bars, I liked A Ginjinha better than Ginjinha Sem Rival as the former was less commercialized. But I haven't had enough of this stuff to be able to taste the difference.
After that, I hopped over to Bonjardim (Travessa de Santo Antão 11, 21-342-4389), which surprised me in many ways. The chicken is just listed as spit-roasted chicken, and you have to ask for the piri-piri sauce, which came in that little bottle on the right. It was potent and certainly light years beyond Nando's, but the meat was also disappointingly powdery. The skin also had so much salt encrusted on it that I had to discard most of it, which is a shame since that's where the fat was.
It didn't come with sides, so I ordered that creamed spinach, which interestingly they told me to put oil and vinegar on as if it were a salad. I think the only thing that I honestly liked was the chicken broth, which was as grey as dishwater but was savory and refreshing with its rice and shredded meat in it. At least the prices were dirt cheap and the service was friendly.
No comments:
Post a Comment