Wind and Cutlass

Wednesday, 27th July.

Another beautiful sunny day today but a fairly strong wind cut our visit to the beach short.

Instead, we took the opportunity to explore the promenade, checking out the restaurants on offer for dinner later on.

We chose a restaurant, O Farol (which, if my phrasebook is anything to go by, translates as The Lighthouse) almost by accident, mistaking what was actually two restaurants for one, thinking there was an upper level on the prom and a lower level on the beach. Entering from the prom, we soon discovered our error but the placed looked fine with a nice view over the bay so we stayed anyway.

Soon after being shown to our table, our waiter arrived with an assortment of plates; bread, butter, sardine paté, prawns, something that looked like coleslaw, all of which (apart from the bread) I sent back, asking instead for some olives.

Next, on to the menu. We'd already taken a quick look at the menu outside the restaurant and I'd decided immediately to have the grilled cutlass fish. I'd never had cutlass fish (still haven't, for that matter) but had seen it on a few TV programmes, it being described as being like mackerel.

Our waiter re-appeared and I ordered the octopus salad and the grilled cutlass fish.

Predictably, there was no cutlass fish. The Missus had already ordered the grilled squid with mussels for her and Pooks and, disappointed by there being no cutlass fish, I just opted for the same.

The octopus salad was very nice. Very tender chunks of octopus with a little chopped onion, dressed with olive oil. Simple but delicious.

The Missus had clams to start, simply cooked in olive oil with garlic and coriander as seems to be the norm in these parts. These too were very tasty.

Then came the squid and it was really pretty good. A couple of whole squid char-grilled and a few green-lipped mussels (which I suspect were previously frozen) served with boiled potatoes with a scattering of parsley and wedge of lemon.

I've never had squid cooked that way before and it made a nice change. It's certainly something I'll be trying when we get back home.

We may have ended up at the restaurant by mistake but, unlike the weather, it turned out nice.

Oh, the olives never did turn up.


The Bloke.