kennethmB5372BM
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Ruben gave us a great Check in with drinks and great information about where to go. The pool is not so good for serious swimming, any flip turning may result in a headache - it is too dark - and touch turns are problematic, too. The sauna and steam rooms are nice. Our room is nice. The location is great. ||The restaurant needs inspiration and technique. Sorry to say, but as a person who spent almost three months on assignment in Lisbon in 2011 and 2012, I can safely say that the Portuguese recipes date from the time of Henry the Navigator and have not changed since. Today, my wife had a Franchesinha at Savores da Invicta and regretted it - it was like an attempt at foreign and fancy in Springfield, IL circa 1975. But, anyways, back to the restaurant - we had dinner. The caldo was very good. The bread, olives and favas nice. But the « swordfish »?! It was fish sticks! The sauce was a nice attempt to jazz up the cuisine and thankfully disrespect traditional Portuguese cooking . I had a lot of seafood in Lisbon years ago and it was usually served only with salt and everyone oohed and ahhed like it was Nobu. And they leave bones in, except in fish sticks. A colleague and I went for sashimi in LIS in ‘12 and he wondered if they’d leave the bones in. I had a lot of swordfish in Croatia and it was a simple piece of fish, cooked over wood. The smoke taste was sublime. No fish stick! ||The snobs always say the greatness of Iberian and Italian food is the fresh ingredients, not the creativity with ingredients. Yeah, yeah, yeah…blah! Anyone could steam shrimp at home, leave the shell on and the toss some Trader Joe’s sea salt on it. Anyone! It is not really cooking, per se - you will never see such simple and bland food on a cooking show - it is just heating.||My piri piri had the chicken in a tube steak and the piri piri was too spicy. I think they ought to look to Nando’s for some inspiration and technique. ||The chocolate lava cake was good. On par with mine and Trader Joe’s. ||Our dinner was not inedible, just way overpriced and the main courses not something to be proud of. Perhaps there are reasons Tex-Mex and pizza and Italian (so different than in Italy) is so widespread in the USA. Rubio’s shrimp tacos blows the doors off any traditional Portuguese seafood. So do Indian and Lebanese. Certainly, one may find the odd Iberian restaurants in larger metropolitan areas in USA, but unless they up their game, it won’t go anywhere.