Jessica I.
Yelp
Going off the beaten path while traveling is often a rewarding experience, and our experience at Portugalia was no exception. We stayed in Cambridge on a visit to the Boston area, so we knew we had to go looking for some of the famous Portuguese cuisine. My husband is a research freak, so I left it to him to settle on one, and this was his selection. We arrived on a Sunday as a nearby church was letting out, but thankfully our fears about running into a horde of churchgoers did not come to fruition. We did, however, encounter several Portuguese families there, plus a couple of what looked like newly-minted Cordon Bleu graduates. We took those as promising signs.
The food was excellent Portuguese comfort food. We started with bowls of the caldo verde soup, which was just the right balance of potato, collard, and linguica. My husband went with the shrimp-stuffed sole, and I chose the bacalau with tartar sauce and potato puree. My first bacalau experience was pretty amazing. I had to pull out some pin bones, but once I got past those, the flesh was firm but tender, and had just enough tang from the salt it was cured in.
We asked our kind young server to recommend a bottle of vinho verde, and she came through for us. The Quinta da Avaleda was a mere $16, but proved a worthy companion to our meal. We actually went looking for it when we got home.
On the day we were there, I think our server got stranded by a coworker, because she was taking care of the whole dining room. I sincerely hope she doesn't have to do that all the time. She did a great job, despite having to deal with a pack of assholes who decided- right after their food came out- that they wanted to have it packed up to go.
This is a family-friendly place, unfortunately for us. Stick two people who don't like kids in a restaurant, and guess what ends up at the next table? But for you folks with crumb snatchers, you'll feel right at home.