One of the most interesting ideas to know the cuisine of Algarve is happening till 12 of October in five towns in this region – Portimão, Silves, Alvor, Mexilhoeira Grande and Ferragudo. It's called “Rota do Petisco” and it consists of a tour by restaurants to try a “tapa” with a drink, for only 2,5 euros or 2 euros if it is a dessert.
“Rota do Petisco” is happening for the 4th time and since last year has us as big fans. In the first we tried fifteen places with fifteen different dishes and on the second edition only in one evening we already got six stamps in our passports that guide us through this gastronomic journey.
Last saturday we started in Ferragudo, one of the nicest fishermen towns in Algarve. In a place like this the food that comes from the sea has to be in the menu. We started our trip this year with a tasty fish soup in Sueste restaurant. A nice way to start the evening.
Looking at the suggestions of the passport, we decided to go to a place called Q Café, that we already knew from last year. This time the suggestion was a mini-liver francesinha, called Francesquinha. Martyna had a non-meat version with salmon and fresh cheese. At this point we were joined by Nuno's sister and brother-in-law, that were our journey partners for that evening.
We were in the mood to try new things and a shrimp burger in a place called Café Duplex seemed a good challenge. It was. Even though it was small, the shrimp burger, served with mini-toast and ruccula was really tasty and made us wonder why is that not more common to find in restaurants.
Then we decided to cross the river to go to Portimão to continue our “Rota”. We went to the “heart” of this event, in Portimão downtown, where the restaurants are really close to each other, so it's usual to see big groups walking around trying to get stamps to their passports.
We wanted to go back to one of our favourite places from last year, where we tried “bucha de bacalhau”, a kind of a cod sandwich with onion, but many other “roteiristas” had the same idea, so we would have to wait to get our stamp and our meal. And we admit – we were still hungry..
Thinking more with our bellies than with our brains we decided to go to a place that would fill up our stomach a bit more, so bean stew with conch – Feijoada de búzios – in Meco restaurant, seemed to be the best option. And it was, because it was tasty and we had a place to seat.
Looking again to our guide/passport, we found another meal that we couldn't miss. Taberna Cool 33 had an octopus toast, that made us walk for 10 minutes to get there. It was worth it, and the place, that we knew from last year made it taste even better.
We couldn't finish the evening without a dessert, and we were decided to eat it, because it wasn't easy to find an available place. After two unsuccesful stops, we decided to check if one of the places where we ate a figg and almonds ice cream last year was in this year Rota. It was, and the ice cream with carob and figg was a great way to finish the night.
If you are near Algarve we recommend at least one evening spent on Rota do Petisco, because for sure we will come back before it ends again!
