Eat Like Ushi

There's not much reason to go down to Croydon other than the most available and not silly expensive (thanks corporations) visa centre in London. For this reason I've ventured once per year. The first time was a quick (other than the visa process) in and out job. The second found me eating at the new Boxpark eating area next to East Croydon station. The third time was brunch at The Breakfast Club in the same area. And this most recent one was a very early dinner at Uncle Lim's at the Whitgift shopping centre.

The shopping centre doesn't look all that flash in itself, and Covid times certainly haven't helped. But Uncle Lim's was the first place we tried after lockdown opened up in June, and so coming for a second time was an easy choice.

The Malaysian auntie is lovely and the seats are only available in the corridor part of the shopping centre outside the restaurant entrance. I suppose it technically counts as takeaway? In any case the first time was on a Sunday when they would normally be closed, but since it was their first day back and re-creating all their pastes, they were only too happy to serve us.

On that occasion, the laksa and char kway teow and teh tarik were the choices. This time laksa £7.5 and har mee £7.9 were chosen. The soups were all rich and spicy and flavoursome with a good amount of chilli, and the colour of soupy dreams. Laksa uses rice noodles (would prefer mix of egg and rice) and har mee uses egg noodles. A dessert of bobo chacha was nice and sweet, although less thick than the version I'm used to from my mum.

I'd happily come back for those noodles again, probably har mee over laksa if I had to pick one as it is much harder to find in London.

After a slightly underwhelming visit to the seafood part of Bolhao market, a late breakfast/early lunch for heading off toward the beach was made easier by Casa Guedes being nearby. Porto seems to have a reputation for sandwiches, others (that I didn't get to try) being the pressed hotdog cachorrinho at Gazela Cachorrinhos da Batalha.

Casa Guedes meanwhile has the pork roll €3.9 plain or €4.9 with melted goats cheese. Online reviews say to get the cheese because it keeps the bread more moist. All I can say is that it was somewhat true, but that the plain could be more moist with a little of the gravy from their serving pan. And i did prefer the simpler flavour of the plain one.

Do yourself a favour and get both. I'd want 2 for myself next time too...

Technically in Gaia rather than Porto, this gelato shop was a little stop on the way back after a drunken tour and taste at Ferreira. Given the immediate area filled with port wineries, they are known for port flavoured gelato, although I didn't really like the thought of it and we'd probably tasted enough port for the day too.

Pistachio had pieces and a decent flavour. Passionfruit was very tangy but had a few too many crystals €3.5 for 2 wasn't too bad.

I was looking for a good gelato and a few options came up on web searches and Google maps, such as Gelatopia or Santini. Cremosi didn't figure at all and it was only when walking past it late at night back toward the Airbnb did I mentally note it. It's a very large place with sitting space and work hours much later than the standard ones.

To deal with Covid and only one person ordering at a time, they had a mixed weird system where sometimes you pay for the gelato then select the flavours, and other times you have to select the flavours before paying. It was confusing to go twice and get asked to do things in different ways.

What I do know is that the pistachio was phenomenal - thick, creamy, nutty, excellent. The lime, mint, ginger was very tangy with a strong ginger flavour, I liked that too.

They also have desserts - tried the lemon tart which had too thick of a base and was much much too sweet. 

For the final lunch before heading to the airport, timing meant that we would need to eat around 11-1130am and unfortunately it meant that a lot of restaurants weren't open yet. I was keen to eat in an outside alley restaurant, my partner was keen for some seafood rice, but it was not to be. We went instead to Cana Verde, at least open and well reputed to be one of the best local places around.

The lunch set meal is a steal at €8 for soup, bread, choice of main and coffee. Certainly all during our meal locals kept coming in and filling all the tables.

The first was a chicken soup with orzo - simple. Soft bread with nice crust came with it too. Salmon cutlet was nice and fatty and perfect grilled, with soft potatoes. Duck rice was very flavoursome and bits of meat all throughout. It was topped with a strong melted cheese, which seemed a little unusual but made for a heavy, salty dish.

A quick and easy local meal that is recommended. As we left, we went past a place Flor de Braganca which was even more heaving with locals and had a queue of workman outside. Next time...

A daytrip from Porto is the Douro valley, known for the most beautiful road in the world (N222 along the Douro river), wine and scenic views. After hiring a car from Porto and driving about for the day, full of windy little roads and steep ascents and descents to all kinds of recommended views, it was time to head back to Porto and get a meal along the way.

We arrived to Peso da Regua around 6pm looking for dinner. The main restaurant on my list was The River Restaurant for roasted goat, but unfortunately they didn't open until 7.30pm. After a wander around the bridges, it was just too long to wait. A Google search found O Maleiro closeby and with roast lamb on the menu. Again unlike what Google said, it opened for dinner at 7pm and we got there around 6.55pm and they were happy to accomodate.

I was disappointed that when I chose the roast lamb, they said they were only serving the short day menu. Shame. The options there seemed less enticing but we settled on two. Seated outside meant we could watch a glimpse of the Douro river as the sun set, enjoy wine served by the bottle (then charged by how much of it was consumed) and listen to the sounds of the homestyle kitchen preparing their food.

- Secretos de porco preto na brasa €14 - the Portuguese version of the Spanish Iberian black pig was extremely juicy and tender with the fat and meat grilled until they fused together to a beautiful taste and texture. Potatoes looked like crisps/chips to my dismay, but that faded when I realised they were thinly sliced potatoes freshly fried and hot, some thin to be crisp, some thicker to have a little soft potato in the middle. Buttered rice came with it too for even more food;
- Lulas grelhadas €12 - two large whole squid grilled and well charred with potatoes and salad.

A value meal that was unexpectedly excellent and perhaps my favourite of the whole week in Porto.

The online recommendations all say that Matosinhos is the place to be for seafood. After managing to sneak in to the market just before their unexpected early closing time (Covid times) and purchasing fresh bunches of percebes for €14/kg, we made our way to Meia-Nau (TA #1, Google 4.8) without a booking. The outside tables were all reserved, but inside had space and it was pleasant enough being there out of the heat of the sun.

There is a small counter of the fresh fish on offer and they'll take you through them and weigh before any choices of cooking method. I chose the unsual looking St. Peter fish, which I vaguely recall eating forgettably in Israel (https://eatlikeushi.posthaven.com/unnamed-restaurant-galilee-05-2009).

3€ cover was for the table (not per person) for soft bread, hard rye, tuna and black olives. Fish soup €4.5 was mild but strong vegetable (carrot and bit of tomato) flavour.

Our St. Peter fish was an odd looking character weighing 1.29kg for €58 (€45/kg). It was offered to us grilled or alternatively fried with roe bread soup. They said the fried version was a traditional dish, but we were in the mood for grilled rather than fried food and so went with the more simple option. It had been perfectly grilled to a very salty crisp skin (assumably the excess salt used to dry out the skin), and a soft delicious flesh with mild flavour. The saltiness was balanced nicely with buttered potatoes, cabbage and carrot. It was too much for 2 people, and they packed away the leftovers for us.

It's definitely not a cheap meal (particularly by Portugal standards) but you'll pay a lot more I think for this quality in specialty seafood restaurants in most parts of the world. I would try somewhere different next time (just because they are so many options in the area) but would happily eat here again too.

The Porto francesinha - the drunk food that you eat when sober or hungover and can't actually get (because all the places are closed) when you are drunk (assuming you aren't drunk really early in the evening). Everyone recommends eating it, and there's a few names that come up as options. Some places are known to be cheap, our tour guide said anything really cheap is probably something you don't want to be eating.

The most famous venue is definitely Cafe Santiago (https://eatlikeushi.posthaven.com/cafe-santiago-porto-10-2013) and although I don't remember the experience that clearly, I do remember feeling wow this is heavy, thick and excessive and probably enough to try once in a lifetime. It seems lifetimes come around more often, and so wanting to try it again, I avoided the curiosity to relive the experience at Santiago and went to a local friend's recommendation of Brasao Aliados instead.

It's a much finer venue for one, more like a bar restaurant than Santiago's fastfood diner. The thing that also brought me here was the vegetarian option, which is hard to find out information about online.

- Francesinha with egg €10.5 - medium rare steak, bacon, chorizo, cheese, meaty tomato sauce, egg. Strong meaty flavours and quite salty, but at least the ingredients seemed decent quality (particularly the steak);
- Vegetable francesinha €10 - asparagus, mushroom, eggplant, fake sausage, tomato rich sauce. Less heavy and more tomato flavour but still a good alternative;
- Orange & mustard salad €3.5 - simple.

Finished with a large glass of white wine sangria 0.4L for €6. I would actually come back to this popular place for food and drink. That occasion would only be on the rare occasion of visiting Porto, so it probably would be to relive the francesinha.

With a solid 5 rating on Google (130 reviews) and it being so close to our Airbnb and the ribeira, I had to visit here. For whatever reason, they were handing out tiny mini cones with a sample of their dulce de leche gelato on it. It didn't sucker me in as I was going to anyway, but it was a nice start.

At €2.8 per scoop, this place is really expensive. They didn't have pistachio, so instead of this hot 29C day, I opted for the Coconut Milk & Ginger. It was a very strong ginger flavoured thick sorbet that seemed to do ok in the heat. There wasn't really any discernible coconut milk flavour. Very good but I don't know if I could justify the price over other places, such as Cremosi.

Far from the Nandos peri-peri (which is delicious in its own right) is the Portuguese charcoal chicken and periperi oil. I'd tried it twice in Lisbon before (https://eatlikeushi.posthaven.com/o-churrasco-lisbon-10-2013 and https://eatlikeushi.posthaven.com/bonjardim-lisbon-05-2019). Each time I enjoyed the roast chicken noting the chilli (but not savoury) addition of chilli oil although not thinking it was a particularly special meal to set out for.

With one week in Porto, meal variety was important and why not a nice roast chicken? It was difficult to find consistent recommendations but Pedro Dos Frangos was a longterm institution, so popular they had opened a second one across the road. Watching the chickens being rotated slowly over the coals was a beautiful sight.

Far from the more expensive Lisbon prices (€10.5 for a whole in 2013, or €7.6 for a half in 2019), a whole chicken with fries cost a mere €10.5. It came with a semi crisp skin, not seasoned but with a touch of salt and peri oil it was delicious and great. Not the most tender but adequate (I suppose they just keep roasting until they are ordered). Chips were pretty good but not that crisp. A nice simple salad accompanied.

If it was only a short visit to Portugal, I probably would stick to seafood. However any meat cravings could easily be satisfied by a chicken.