Looking to plan a trip to Portugal with my partner (not to the touristy areas) Food plays a large part in our trip. I can't eat any fish or seafood and according to lots of websites the cuisine is mainly based around seafood or fish and apparently even the meat dishes have some seafood in them. I don't know how true this is :-/. I'd like to try lots of traditional dishes but concerned im going to be very limited, if so we will choose somewhere else to go with more of a variety. Can anybody who's been to Portugal shed some light on this and let me know if there are lots of other things to eat apart from fish and seafood. I may be looking into things a little too much and being paranoid :-/ but really want to make the most of the food over there if we go.
apparently even the meat dishes have some seafood in them.
Well, this is a website too. However, I've been to Portugal several times and what you've read is a load of rubbish. There may be the odd meat dish that includes seafood but I can't recall any.
There are plenty of meat dishes - seafood is not more important than is so many other countries (Spain, France, .........).
Another thing is that the typical Portuguese food is not very sophisticated - to put it mildly.
The reason that websites tells about the seafood and fish is that most find this very attractive compared to a steak that you can have everywhere.
Firstly, I agree with Tony (btw, good to see you back!). Like many people who post on here saying that they've "read" or "heard" something this is generally rubbish. I cannot recall ever having a dish that mixes meat and seafood there, apart from a paella which my mum cooks superbly. This, however, is spanish and not portuguese.
I'd tend to agree with Bjoern to a certain extent. Portuguese food is very tasty, but not particularly varied or exciting. You will find meat dishes everywhere, however if you don't eat fish or seafood, you'll be missing out on the best part of Portuguese cuisine.
One thing which I love in Portugal, but is unfortunately not so popular nowadays is frango (chicken) piri piri, which is basically a grilled chicken marinated in hot piri piri sauce. It's generally cheap and delicious, and it used to be the Portuguese fast food of choice until the likes of McDonalds, Pizza Hut and KFC etc arrived.
Hi,
I suppose that the food which mixes seafood and meat is the "Carne de porco à alentejana", known in the Algarve as "Carne de porco com amêijoas". It's a mix of pork and clams, and present in almost any menu in the south. But as everybody said, there's a lot of food only with meat. You'll have no difficulty eating - except that maybe menus at restaurants will be a bit repetitive after a few days (steak, cutlet, filet, lamb chops, roast pork, and that omnipresent 'chicken piri-piri).
trusted partner
