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What to Eat in Portugal - Traditional Portuguese Food that Tourists Miss
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Jun 15, 2025
Are you heading to Lisbon or Porto or the Algarve this year? Wanting to know what you should eat in Portugal? Well here we give you the best eats of Portugal from the fish to the meat to the tasty treats. Traditional Portuguese food in Portugal. Filmed in Lisbon, Portugal Wolters World for Food! Our videos focus on helping travelers know what to eat when they travel, the traditional food that you always want to eat when you travel. Copyright Mark Wolters 2025 Our Main Channel: https://www.youtube.com/woltersworld Visit Our Amazon Store for Drinkware, cookingware, travel gear, and other necessities of life. http://www.amazon.com/shop/woltersworld Follow Jocelyn on Instagram - http://www.instagram.com/jocelynwoltersworld Follow Wolters World on Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/woltersworld Follow Our Shorts Channel for quick travel tips: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmSIWRrLCcqamLlTEEBLFLA
View Video Transcript
0:01
Hey there fellow travelers, Mark here with Walters World and today we're here in Lisbon
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Portugal, outside of the many, many restaurants you will find here in Portugal
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And today what I want to talk about is kind of like what you should eat and drink when
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you do come to Portugal, because I know it's a really popular tourist destination and people
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aren't always sure what they're supposed to have. So I thought I'd go through a list of some of my favorites from eating here in Portugal
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and believe me, I used to be skinny and then I came to Portugal and ate all their food
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Luckily they have food again because I don't live here anymore. But there's some really great stuff
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The thing is, I want to give you some tips before we get started on the food. One thing you need to realize is here in Portugal, everything starts later, okay
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So lunch is from like 12 to 3, and then dinner is from like 7 to 10
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And if you're kind of the person who likes to eat between like 5, 6, or 7 o'clock at night for dinner
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you're going to be probably out of luck. Unless you go to the tourist areas, those restaurants will be open
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And the thing is, it's not that the restaurants close. The thing is, is the kitchen actually closes, okay
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So the restaurant will be open. and they might have snacks for you to have from 3 to 7
1:00
but I don't expect to have your bacallau or your porco preto or anything like that
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between that 3 to 7 time period because most of the kitchens are closed
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Now, the reason I'm talking about that is because I want to start with talking about these salgados
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or the little snacks you're going to have when you are here because that's kind of like your go-to thing when you're walking around
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you want to pick up something nice. So I'm going to start with those. So if you're going by one of these restaurants and it's 3 o'clock and you're a little hungry
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probably one of the easiest things to get is what's called a tosta mista, which is just a toasted ham and cheese sandwich
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Now, I know that sounds simple, but here the bread is very good
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and they put like extra butter on top, and it's kind of like a go-to snack for people when you're here
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so that's a good one. But probably the most touristy one you'll hear are bol de bacchal
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or these little codfish cakes, which you'll see all over the country, and they are pretty good too if you like cod
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I don't like cod, so I have a tough time sometimes, all right? Another thing you'll see is there's a lot of little pastries here in Portugal
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Probably the most famous one you're going to have is the pastel de Belén or pastel de nata
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It's called pastel de Belén if it's made in the Belén district here in Lisbon
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If it's not made here in Lisbon in the Belén district, anywhere else, it's called pastel de nata
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which is just a custard tart. I mean, it's really good. It's really nice. And you'll see a lot of tarts, a lot of puff pastry kind of treats here, which are nice
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Also, a lot of the desserts will have an egg and sugar mixture
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So just giving a heads up for that one. Also, some of the other snacks you might have
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You might have what are called follados, which is puff pastry with maybe ham and cheese inside or cheese inside
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That's another good one just to have a little snack. Also, nice little snacks, which will kind of like dessert things
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So if you want to reward yourself for walking these seven hills of Lisbon or for surviving the going to the grottoes and lagos in the south or making it up the Quebra Costa, Senquimbra, you have all kinds of really nice desserts here
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So you might want to have the bowl de bolacha, which is a cookie cake is what they call it
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You might have chocolate salami, basically it's like chocolate with cookie pieces inside of it
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My personal favorite, they make amazing chocolate mousse here in Portugal. That is my go-to every single time
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Also they have a masasaba or like a grilled baked apple, which is a really popular thing as well
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So there a lot of really tasty treats you can have when you are here Now the thing is you don wanna know about the tasty treats You wanna know about know about what the real deal Mark What the real food we have to have here And I would say since we have all the coastline here in Portugal fish is your go
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thing when you are here. Now, for the go-to fish stuff, one thing is, you got to realize
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Portugal is famous for Bacagão, or codfish. I talked about the codfish cakes, but the thing is
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you'll have cod, and there's actually so many ways to make it. There's a Portuguese saying that
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A good Portuguese wife will make cod 365 days a year, and her husband will still be happy
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And so, yeah, there's a lot of different codfish things. My personal favorite is bacchalatis, which is codfish with cream
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That's really nice. There's bacchalatis, there's grilled cod. There's all kinds of good stuff that you can have with codfish
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But cod is not the only dish here in terms of fish. Two good fish, robalo and dorada, are the two kind of go-to fish
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Sea bream, sea bass kind of stuff. Fantastic white fish to have. Oh, man, it's so good
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That was Jocelyn's go-to a lot of times when we lived here. Also, the shellfish you can have here
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Chocos or cuttlefish is a specialty from Setable. You can have that
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But probably the two most Portuguese dishes when it comes to seafood and stuff like that
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One is oroz de morisco, which is a seafood rice stew, which usually when you order it will only come for like two people
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So you make sure you got a friend or be insanely hungry or realize you're going to waste a lot of food when you do that, okay
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But my personal favorite is a sorda. And a sorda is basically if you take, like, stuffing and mix in some eggs with it
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and some shrimp in there, oh, my God, that is my go-to when I miss Portugal
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And I want a bomba calorica or a calorie bomb, that's the way to go, all right
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But the thing is probably the most famous during the summer to have in terms of fish here in Portugal are sardines
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Now, I know when you think sardines, you think those little sardines in a can. Oh, no, no, no, no
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Here, it's not little sardines. It's big sardines you have here. And the thing is, you'll see them and go, wait, what kind of fish is that
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Why are they grilling all this fish here in June? The sardines are the staple of June and July
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That's when you want to eat them, okay? You might not have it other times of the year, or they're frozen
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They're not as good, okay? So here in the summertime, hit up the sardines. But also, I've got to let you know, you'll have to, like, peel it and gut it and stuff like that a lot of times yourself
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So you might want to ask your server, hey, could you show me how to do this the first time
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So I have a better idea of what I'm doing. So that's one thing there. Now, it's not just fish when you are here
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Portugal actually has a lot of really good meats as well. My personal favorite is the Porco Preto or Segredos do Porco Preto, Secrets of Black Pork or Iberian Pork
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Oh, my God. It is so good. You can get Febres. You can get – there's just so many different versions of it
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Segredos or Febres do Porco Preto, that's my go-to. When I come here, I get my assorda, I make sure I get assorda, and I make sure I get porco preto, okay, the black pork
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That's always good. Other things, if you like beef, they have bitoque, which is just like a little steak
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It'll either be fried, you can ask them to grill it too, and it'll always come with rice and fries
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Oh, that's one thing I've got to tell you. When you come here to Portugal, you'll eat a lot of rice and fries
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I mean, look, there's a whole thing here of just potatoes. I think it's just for one restaurant, because you'll see you'll get rice and fries
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and another side of rice, or another side of fries. with your meat Now that if you get the beef or you get the pork that what you have or maybe chicken the grilled chicken here is really good too But if you get fish usually with your fish you get a salad and a boiled potato So just know if you going to go meat it more like a carb diet when you are here
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So what tasty Portuguese treat is this? Fantastic food here. It's catagoy. And it looks just like the tiny little snails that used to be in my garden here in Lisbon
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And they're lovely. So if you're here in the summer, definitely want to have some karakosh
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You'll see things that say, ah, karakosh. Kelo, do you like the karakosh
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You want some karakosh? Really? So step three with karakosh is the mini
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I don't know why they have little tiny bottles, but you always have a little tiny bottle of beer with your snails
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So that's probably great. But not for the kids. For part three, for the kids
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And the thing is, the food can seem a bit heavy when you are here. And that's one thing I should warn you is realize when you come to Portugal, when you eat, it takes time
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It takes time to get your order. It takes time to get your food. But the Portuguese like to eat for a long time
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So your lunch break, yeah, you might go for an hour and a half lunch, okay? And dinner might be two or three hours of continually eating and stuff like that
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And if you go to somebody's house, it's almost a whole day affair. of eating and drinking and enjoying things
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Oh, and I forgot about the drinks. How can I forget about that? Now, Portugal is famous for its wine for good reason
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It's affordable and it's fantastic. And the thing is, you can get the red wines, the Vinho Tinto
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you can get that anywhere, or Vinho Branco, which is white wine. But the two kind of famous Portuguese wines that I recommend to have
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one, of course, you have the port wine, you'll see. But the thing is, port wine
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everybody in Portugal probably has a bottle of port wine at their house, but they don't drink it every day
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They drink normal wine, the red wines, the white wines here. that's more your everyday drinking wine
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But you can have port wine, that's sweet wine, but that's an after-dinner drink, okay, just to know that
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But the one wine I highly recommend that we buy when we go home to the U.S
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and always have is what's called green wine. And it's a special wine from here in Portugal
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And what it is, it's a very effervescent young white wine. So it's got a little bubble to it
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So it's like white wine with a little Prosecco in there, and it's really fantastic
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And it's always sort of chilled, and they'll put a little sleeve around it to keep it cold when you order it
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So make sure you have that. Now another thing you want to think about when you're here is the beer to drink
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And they have Superbach and Sagres. They're kind of the two big beer companies. You'll see here there's different variations on the beers
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But Superbach and Sagres is kind of the two ones people choose from. The thing I would say is you're going to see it come in many sizes
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You might get a liter of beer. Or you might get a mini, a little tiny beer. Or a bucket of beers and things like that
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But if you want to get just a glass of beer, it's called an Imperial. At least here in Lisbon it's called Imperial
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And that's like a .2 liters beer. That's kind of the typical way you drink it
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But one of the things I'd say is if you're going to have some beers, you're going to have tramosas with it or like lupin, they're called lupin beans
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And what you do is you don't eat the whole bean. What you do is you nibble on the end and then you shoot the bean from the shell into your
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mouth and then you chew it up and throw away the shell. I've seen some tourists, like the first time I did, I was eating the shell
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The guy like wait wait wait no dude No no no You want to make sure you bite the end shoot it in and then eat it and then don eat oh okay And so it my job to let other tourists know that you don eat the shell the Tremosos You just enjoy the Tremosos which is imperial and you enjoy your time here
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Anyway, what are some other things you should have and do when you're here? I guess I should have more advice back up the hill
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So if you're looking for a non-alcoholic Portuguese drink, you can drink the water here, no problem
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But they do have their own bottled waters, like Pedras, if you like bubble water, stuff like that
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But for us, what we always give for the kids is Sumo. It's a it's like it's not fancy. It's like fancy. It's more about it feels like a much healthier orange soda
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But it's not soda. It's like the bubble free stuff. Oh, it's so good
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It's so good that we always buy that when we get here. It's either an orange Laranja or ananas pineapple, okay? I like the orange one. My kids love the orange ones
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It's very nice. It has a little bit of pulp in there, too So you feel like you're drinking real oranges, so it's really kind of a cool thing
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But the most important drink in Portugal is the cafe or cafezinho the little coffee or
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Uma Vica is what you'll say like in Portugal. And the coffee here, people love their coffee
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You want to drink Delta coffee when you're here? You'll see Starbucks and things like that
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Don't waste your time there. Go to any cafe, any restaurant, any time of the day
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They will have coffees for you and have just a little cafe. It's an espresso kind of thing
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Very strong, very powerful, very much gets you going. And the Portuguese love it
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They have it all the time, all right? So that's kind of cool. And the thing is, when you come to eat in Portugal, when you go and sit down
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I guess I should tell you this. when you sit down at restaurants, they'll put bread and butter and olives and maybe cheese and ham in front of you
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And the thing is, you've got to realize is you pay for all that. So you don't want the bread. Just tell them no thanks, they don't want the bread
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You don't want the butter and just the bread, that's okay. Just don't eat it or tell them it's okay, I don't want it
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because that can add up on the price of your food when you're here
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So it might be an extra few euros if you eat the bread, the butter, the cheese and things like that
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The thing is, I wouldn't say pass it up. The cheeses here, they have what's called queijo fresco, which is the fresh cheese
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Put a little salt on top of it on your bread. Oh, my God, it's so good. They have, and also the olives here, fantastic
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So that's always one. We kind of always keep with the queijo fresco, the pão, the bread, pão
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And then, oh, the butter here. Oh, my God, it's so good. See, you can tell why I've increased since my years living here
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But overall, you have a great time eating here in Portugal. If you're coming to Lisbon, if you're here for a layover or something like that
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it's easy to get great Portuguese food. Now, there is one more thing I want to talk about with the restaurants here
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is you might think, man, some of these restaurants look really run down. Well, the thing is, Portugal's very safe
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so you don't really have to worry too much about run downness. But what I've found is the run down looking places
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are maybe not looking like they're the fancy nouveau cuisine places. They're called Tashkas
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Those are like family-run businesses and stuff, and they are probably the best places to get traditional Portuguese food
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And sometimes you're going down a back alley for a caldo verde or a caldo verde is a special soup here
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You will see that. Oh, and that's the thing. for veggies they eat it in their soup here so grab a soup before you start your meal
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soup is so popular here mcdonald's even had soup introduced here just for the portuguese market
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because they love their soup so i hope this helps you know a little bit about what you should eat
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when you do come here to portugal whether it's like a weekend trip to lisbon or you're exploring
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the whole country from the beauty of porto in the north the algarve in the south or or anywhere in
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between i hope you have a great time and just eat well my friend you will because portugal is
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fantastic for food bye from lisbon
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