Portugal: Povo

My now former program director told me to find fado in Lisbon, so I dutifully looked it up.  I read on TripAdvisor that Povo has fado performances at night and the food is supposed to be pretty good too, so I dragged the girls there:  

We got there kind of early:

What else is new?  We never managed to get a hang of the later dinner hours of Europe.

We saw vinho verde or green wine on the menu, so we ordered a glass to try since it's supposed to be a Portuguese specialty.  I was all for giving it a sip, but I ordered my own ginger ale all the same:

I didn't like vinho verde, but I'm sure that's not surprising to anyone who knows me.  What is surprising is that neither AF or T liked it either.

Povo is a tapas restaurant.  None of us had ever tried Portuguese tapas, so we were really excited when we were perusing the (English!) menu.  Of course the excitement we felt then was nothing compared to what we felt when the food started coming.

First came the octopus salad (8.90 €):

So pretty and fresh.  The octopus was soft, soft, soft.

Caldo verde is a traditional Portuguese soup:

Povo's caldo verde or collared greens soup comes with chorizo (2.20 €).  It was thick and yummy.

We also ordered the peixinhos da horta or battered deep fried string beans (5.10 €):

The gizzards in a tomato sauce (6.40 €) was my favorite:

Although the pica-pau or tender beef strips in white wine and mustard sauce (7.80 €) wasn't bad either:

The original plan was to enjoy a long dinner and stick around for the fado performance.  We've never been good at sticking to original plans.  In this case, we simply couldn't make dinner last that long.  The fado wasn't supposed to start until around 9:30 pm.  We finished dinner around 7:00.

Yea.  We really need to learn how to come up with more realistic plans.

Anyway, though we missed out on the fado, we got another unexpected treat.  When our bill arrived, it came with a Povo postcard.  Our server saw how we were geeking out over the postcard and surprised us with five more.  Holy cow.  How nice is that?:

Since we didn't stay around long enough to catch any fado, I can't tell you whether or not it was any good.  I can, however, vouch for the food.  It's definitely good at Povo.


Povo
Rua Nova do Carvalho 32-36
1200-292 Lisbon, Portugal
+351 21 347 3403
http://www.povolisboa.com/