Our second night in Madeira brought us to this net festooned seafood restaurant in the “downtown” area of Funchal. We had been informed that it was exclusive and “an excellent choice”, far from the main tourist strip.
Instead we found ourselves in the middle of a crowd that might be more typical of Siducp or Skegness than a Portuguese colony off the coast of Africa.
The centrepiece of this restaurant is a giant circular lobster tank. Lethargic looking lobsters skanked around the cloudy aquarium. They languished in a pool of cloudy stagnant looking water, the lobster equivalent of death row.
What is worse than knowing you will die? Surely it is knowing that your innocent death will be for an unworthy cause. Fortunately molluscs cannot philosophise – only humans suffered in O Barqueiro
The lifeless black eyes of Belinda’s prawns stared at us in grim reproach. These invertebrates bore the signs of hideous crimes against food. Their accusing eyes told me that they had been lumped on a skillet and then grilled until chewy. They had not been cleaned or prepared in any way justifying the twenty Euro price-tag.
My “Cod Barqueiro” turned out to be a surprise. I was told to expect locally produced cod fillet, served in a piquant sauce made from shellfish. It was their majestic signature dish, the pinnacle of Portuguese seafood, an unforgettable gastronomic opportunity.
Instead I found an unfilleted lump of thick-skinned bony cod, plonked in a dish with bland-boiled potatoes. This dish was then scattered with a smattering of prawn, tough squid-rings and unidentifiable “fruits de la mere” and then drenched in a kind of stringy molten fondue-cheese which was grilled to a dull yellow-brown.
This were served with a small tray of what appeared to be oven chips. The overall appearance was that of a microwaved macaroni-cheese served in a trucker’s service station.
We picked at our meals, and decided not to bother. I took a photo of Belinda making a sick expression and glowering at her plate of overcooked, under cleaned prawns and then we asked for the bill.
Our plates were removed swiftly, not a word of “did you enjoy your meal”. Clearly the waiters did not expect us to derive pleasure from this cheesy mush. When the bill came we had been charged for a bottle of wine that we never ordered. The basket of garlic bread and fishcakes which we had assumed were complimentary turned out to be extras.
This has to be one of the worst restaurants we have ever attempted to eat at. As one of the island’s well appointed taxis sped us to our mountain hotel, we wondered what process might have lead the chef to drown our fish in cheese. Was this mere culinary incompetence or more likely genuine loathing of the silver-haired foreigners who were our fellow diners.
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