Bad-ass Sea Bass

Sunday, 24th July.

Wow.

That's really all you need to say about tonight's dinner at the fabulous Tasca No Cais on Sao Martinho's waterfront.

We're actually no strangers to this place, having been here during a property search in December/January 2007/2008.

This time, however, the trip is purely pleasure (although we do have our eye on an apartment up the road) and it's the food I'm more interested in than the real estate.

I was keen to delve further into the fresh seafood on offer and this place didn't let me down.

First though, it was the morcilla that caught my eye for starters.

It's fair to say that they don't do things by halves here. That was apparent when The Missus' starter of garlic prawns arrived. They were huge, absolutely delicious and there were plenty of them. Shortly after their arrival, my black pudding appeared.

This, again, was huge - probably about a foot long. It was also very tasty. Laced with paprika, pepper and rice, it had a little background heat which really rounded off the flavour.

Massive was the continuing theme as the main event arrived.

I should really go back a little here to when we were ordering.

I had originally intended to go for the sardines. When in Rome, and all that. Or Portugal, as it were. However this place has whatever comes in on the boat on any particular day and they were all out of sardines.

The Missus had already decided on sea bass however we were a little unsure as all the fresh fish was priced by the kilo.

When our waitress advised that there were no sardines, I said I'd have the bream and The Missus said she'd have the bass. This prompted a frown from the waitress who promptly directed us over to the fish counter. Turns out, if you wanted sea bass you got the whole sea bass (or bream or mullet etc) but these weren't the size you'd see in a UK supermarket. These were about as long as my arm. Seriously. The waitress hauled out a bass and weighed it - little short of 2 kilos. Looked like we were all having sea bass after all.

We weren't disappointed. The fish was simply butterflied and barbecued whole and served with new potatoes and shredded runner beans. And delicious it was too; charred, crispy skin and opaque white, succulent flesh. Worth every one of the €66 for the fish alone.

On a side note, while that might sound quite expensive, in reality it's not. Not if you consider the size of the fish. The truth is nothing's very expensive here at all. At least the food and drink aren't. A rare thing these days in any neck of the woods.

Anyway, this photo doesn't really do this magnificent fish justice but at least the chef at Tasca No Cais did.


The Bloke.