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GOOD LOCAL PORTUGUESE FOOD IN PORTO

Porto, Portugal - October 2019

It's our first time in Portugal, and we where there for a 3-weeks cycling tour after landing at Porto. And our first taste of Portuguese food was at this second largest city in Portugal.

In a way it was good, although a large place, the city had retained it warm neighbourliness and old look. The people are friendly and most of the buildings are quaintly old and conspicuously colourful.
Ok, I detract, let's get back to the food. We ate at several places, but these two are the most memorable, and interestingly on the opposite ends of the spectrum. One is a small place called, catering mainly to the working class locals, and served down to earth Portuguese dishes cooked by mama! The other is slightly up-market and often caters for tourists who wants to try out one of Porto's renown dishes, Francesinha.

Restaurante Nova Luanda

Let's see what we had at Restaurante Nova Luanda. We discovered this nice, little neighbourhood restaurant by chance, we were actually looking to forward our luggage to some cities in Spain at an adjacent a courier shop.

What attracted us to this shop was their posters that shouted out a meal for an incredible €5-00 per pax. And it was not just a simple one dish meal. It was a set meal that include a soup and bread starter, a selection of main course, desserts and coffee! Their menu changes daily and the main course is written in Portuguese on a white-board displayed at the front of their restaurant. The varying menu encouraged us to come back again to eat the following day. We were not the only regulars, their loyal clientele are mainly local workmen; we were the only tourists eating there.

We started off with a simple potato soup, it's a light creamy soup with some strips of carrots and potato leaves. It may not look like much, but on that cold morning, this warm soup was indeed very welcome. It was more than welcome the place was full and we sat el-fresco on tables laid outside, making us feel even more chilled.

This main course is bolinhos de bacalhau (cod fish cake/fritter) served on a bed of popular Portuguese staple - rice with red kidney beans. Their helpings are large, large enough to attract the local workmen.The fritters were tasty, with enough fish to give that fishy taste.

Pork and pork sausage pasta; creamily good with nice chunks of lean pork.

The sausage is a very tasty Linguiça, a form of smoke-cured pork sausage seasoned with garlic and paprika. The garlic and paprika gives a cheeky bite to the tongue. Chick peas add some powdery consistency to the dish.

Pork chop was also served with - rice with red kidney beans. The pork fillet was a lean cut, well pan-fried and served with a slice of lemon. Squeeze the lemon juice onto the pork or rice for that extra oomph!

Roast Chicken with lightly buttered rice and potato fires.The chicken cut was surprisingly not breast meat but a full drum stick which we Asians preferred. It was just nicely roasted to give a good burnt aroma. Luanda's chips is one of the best, crispy on the outside and soft on the inside and its buttery flavour tasted better than the frites I had in Belgium.

Minced pork with buttered rice and potato fries.

Pan-fried pork belly. This one is very good, well seasoned; would have been perfect if the skin was more crispy crunchy.

For drinks some of us had this popular Porto beer, Super Bock. Others had fruit juices or wine - we were surprised to find the wine served in a jug, and these were good Douro red wine!
Coffee is served as a separate course over the drinks, and if one is not up for coffee, they can replace it with some pastry.
AND all of these at only €5-00 per pax!
We really wondered how they could make a profit! It's probably because they are a family run place, with the son being the up-front PR man and taking orders, mummy and aunty the chefs, and Big Daddy running the cashier counter!

Restaurante Nova Luanda

Avenida de Rodrigues de Freitas 328 4000-386 Porto, Portugal.

Phone: +351 22 205 2110

Hours: 8am to 5pm (Closed on Sundays)

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Restaurante-Nova-Luanda

GPS & Direction Map : 41.14541, -8.60433

(Click here for Google Street View)

Related/Similar Blogs :

Good Portuguese Francesinha In Porto, Portugal

Porto is renown for it Francesiha dish, and the best place to try them is at Brasão Cervejaria Aliado.

Cycling Europe 2019 Days 3: Discovering Porto

Despite the rain and cold, we had a great time following a walking tour and more!

GOOD FRANCESINHA IN PORTO

Porto, Portugal - October 2019

It's our first time in Portugal, and we where there for a 3-weeks cycling tour after landing at Porto. And our first taste of Portuguese food was at this second largest city in Portugal.

In a way it was good, although a large place, the city had retained it warm neighbourliness and old look. The people are friendly and most of the buildings are quaintly old and conspicuously colourful.
Ok, I detract, let's get back to the food. We ate at several places, but these two are the most memorable, and interestingly on the opposite ends of the spectrum. One, Brasão Cervejaria Aliado, is slightly up-market and often caters for tourists who wants to try out one of Porto's renown dishes, Francesinha. The other is a small place called Nova Luanda, catering mainly to the working class locals, and served down to earth local Portuguese dishes cooked by mama!

Brasão Cervejaria Aliado

Let's see what we had at Brasão Cervejaria Aliado.This place has that warm, homey feel, with lots of brown timber around to make one feel cozy.

We started of with a bread set. In Portugal, if one does not want the bread (which could be too filling if one orders several dishes), just let the waiter know ahead.
Any way the one's here were perfect, dense with crispy crust. It was served with some herbal butter.

For starters, these Mediterranean olives were superb. Just slightly salted they taste oddly sweet too and a bit crunchy. One of the best olives we have tasted.... so far.

More starters to whet our appetite: crispy flat bread sticks. These were very crunchy and goes well with the mayonnaise dip.

Okay, this is not those black salted duck eggs one finds in East Asian and South-east Asian countries. These are mushrooms served with a pastry covering coated with truffles!
Not sure how much truffles were used in the coating, but it sure tasted very good.

Cut opened, the minced mushroom can be seen inside. Tastewise the wet mushroom goes very well with the powderish truffles.

These meat crochets looked a bit lost, actually there were three of them but one was lost in someone's tummy before I had a chance to snap this photo. Consisting of minced meat with mashed potato rolled into a crochet and deep-fried. A good crispy outside belies the wonderful inside.

This odd looking flower is actually a geometrically cut large onion which had been quickly and skilfully deep fried to retain this flowery look. If you like onion rings, this is ten times better, crispy and without the batter!

The onion flower is served with this black mayonnaise, one don't find this in many restaurants and aficionados often end up having to make a batch for themselves, there ones here were superbly black and superbly tasty.

An heeeeere comes the star of the night, the main reason we are dining at Brasão Cervejaria Aliado as they are renown in Porto for serving the best Francesinha, one of the city's renown dish.
It is made with bread, wet-cured ham, linguiça, fresh sausage like chipolata, steak or roast meat, and covered with melted cheese and a hot thick tomato and beer sauce. " It had its origin when a returned emigrant from France and Belgium, tried to adapt the croque-monsieur to the Portuguese taste when he moved to Porto. He first created the special sauce and populated the sandwich with local meats in 1953 at 'A Regaleira', a restaurant in Rua do Bonjardim, Porto; the Francesinha quickly became a very popular dish and deeply associated with the city, although it can be sometimes found elsewhere in Portugal."
This one show above is a Vegetarian Francesinha, made without the meat and topped off with a sunny-side-up egg. The top-most photo of this blog shows the usual Francesinha, both are served with tomato & beer sauce.

This one shows a cut-opened regular Francesinha, where the meat can be seen inside. Taste-wise it's okay only, but since in Porto, we just gave it a try. "Though numerous legends describe the invention of the dish, the most popular one claims that when Henry the Navigator went to conquer Ceuta, the locals supplied him with all the meat except tripe, which they then used to create this rustic stew. From the 15th century, the dish evolved into an iconic dish that is a staple in traditional restaurants in Porto. It is best enjoyed with cooked rice on the side."
wanted to try the Tripas à moda do Porto, another renown Porto dish, but my buddies were not up to it as this was made from pig tripe!

Desserts was Chocolate Mousse, but uniquely served rolled into small balls and covered with chocolate powder. I can only say, "Don't miss this!". But hold your breath when you take it in, otherwise one will get a snuff of chocolate.

This place even have their own brew, the Brasao Sovina, served in their unique cups.
Here's what "Beer Advocate" says about this beer:
"I've been told by the bartender that this is not an IPA (Indian Pale Ale) but a 'Pale Ale'. With this margin for doubt, I will review it anyway.
A: The body is coppery with a weak white to beige head that has an average lacing and minor retention.
S: The aroma is yeasty and malty, which probably says that it's not an IPA. It's more close to Belgian beer than any IPA variation that I've had before.
T: The taste is malty and yeasty, it's average again, not that interesting but it meets the objective of being a rather nice beer for heavy foods like the typical Francesinha. M: The body is medium to low. Carbonation level is low and bitterness is mild to be friendly with this mouth-feel."

Brasão Cervejaria Aliado have a cozy bar counter, and the ever-smiling staff whoe were very friendly and helpful.

Below are Brasão Cervejaria Aliado menus: