Canto do Lobo (Caminha, Portugal)
After an afternoon of recovery and exploration of the pleasant little city of Caminha, it was time for a full post-hike celebratory dinner. One place we had found just inside the city walls on the north end of town particularly caught our eye: Canto do Lobo (“Wolf Song”).
Casa Almeida (Caminha, Portugal)
After leaving Vila Praia de Âncora, the last day of our coastal hike was a relatively short one; after around 5 km of hiking we came to the village of Moledo and the Minho river, which serves at the boundary between Spain and Portugal. Eschewing the many offers by competing water taxi companies thinking we were pilgrims needing a ride over to Spain to continue hiking the Caminho, we soon arrived in the pleasant ancient walled city of Caminha where the Minho river is intersected by the smaller Coura river. It’s a nice little town that still has much of its medieval city walls, and after we arrived at the formal end of our walk, the Chafariz Praça Conselheiro Silva Torres, a 16th century functional watering fountain, we decided to have a nice break for lunch, settling on nearby Casa Almeida.
Restaurante Fortaleza (Vila Praia de Âncora, Portugal)
After leaving Amorosa, an afternoon of hiking took us from the relatively sparse world of coastlines, beaches, and coastal resorts into Viano do Castelo, which is actually a small metro area with a population approaching 100,000. After a few explorations around the area, we had a delightful Portuguese dinner at a small spot called Taberna Cantinho de Viana… which I’m not writing up since I discovered they closed two weeks after my visit. Oh well, that’s the restaurant business. But the next day, we had a shorter coastal hike up to the resort city of Vila Praia de Âncora, a well-known surfing city with a harbor that has a boardwalk-like atmosphere of bars and restaurants that, during the high season, offer outdoor dining. But many of these places are still open in the off-season, including our destination for the evening, Restaurante Fortaleza.
Pastelaria Amorosa (Amorosa, Portugal)
After leaving Viano do Castelo, our Caminho hike returned to the coast. Unlike the stretch of the Caminho down by our start in Povoa de Varzim, for the rest of our hike most of the hiking was along fairly quiet and undeveloped coastal stretches. This was one of our longer days (14 km), and almost the entirety of the hike was through undeveloped areas and beaches, with one exception, the town of Amorosa. Amorosa is the settlement associated with Praia Amarosa, one of the Minha’s best-regarded beaches for surfing, but the town itself is nestled behind the dunes with two separate settlement centers: the older village along the southern Praia, and the new city that’s block upon block of large apartment buildings built for vacationers. I’ll be honest, the newer part of town seemed pretty soulless to me, especially in the off-season, and we ran into the reality than in October, with the beach running only a few die-hard surfers, pretty much everything in town was shut down, aside from two places in the village. We decided to check out one of them, Pastelaria Amorosa.
O Tasco Regional (Castelo do Neiva, Portugal)
After leaving the pleasant seaside town of Esposende, the Caminho Português da Costa takes an inland detour through some coastal marshes, and after a pleasant day of hiking we ended up in the small town of Castelo do Neiva, staying in one of the most elaborate and luxurious hotels of our Portugal trip, the Quinta do Monteverde, a 17th century manor house with large outdoor gardens and pools. The Quinta’s innkeeper pointed us at two feasible options for dinner: Picanha Brasil Oficial, a Brazilian BBQ place, and O Tasco Regional, a wine and tapas bar. We opted for the latter, heading up to the top of the hill in Castelo do Neiva.
Pizzeria di Pappi (Esposende, Portugal)
After our pastry stop in Fão, another 90 minutes of hiking and crossing of the Cávado river, we arrived in the town center of Esposende. Another of the region’s seaside resort towns, Esposende is also a regional hub for agriculture and fishing, so the town is pretty substantial, around 30k residents, and has two reasonably busy business areas (one on the waterfront, and a similar one around the old town). However, we arrived on a Monday, which is one of the nights when many restaurants are closed. But with a short walk around town, we found Pizzeria Di Pappi, which was open, and quite popular, especially the outdoor patio, but they managed to fit us into the inside seating.
Pasuca (Fão, Portugal)
Our second day of hiking was a relatively short hike from Apúlia up to Esposende. Instead of taking the direct route, we packed a lunch and took a major detour through the Parque Natural do Litoral Norte, a large park on a peninsula west of Esposende consisting of rolling sand dunes and views of the Cávado river estuary. After completing that detour, we passed through the smaller town of Fão. Our guide recommended that we make a short diversion in Fão to check out Pastelaria Fãozense for the local specialty, which is Clarinhas de Fão (pastries made with pumpkin threads). Alas, Pastelaria Fãozense was closed for vacation when we came by, but just across the way is another local bakery specializing in Clarinhas de Fão, Pasuca.
Moinho De Sal (Apúlia, Portugal)
After a nice, scenic afternoon of hiking from Aguçadoura, we arrived in the coastal resort town of Apúlia, which sports a nice, large harbor, a good sandy beach, and a scenic series of sand dunes all topped with old windmills with a boardwalk connecting them. However, being a Sunday evening, we had to deal with a logistical issue: a good fraction of the dining establishments in town, even those still open in the off-season, are closed on Sundays. But luckily, one of the town’s better fine dining restaurants, Moinho de Sal (“Salt Mill”, as in windmill), was open and we managed to get reservations.
Café Dunas (Aguçadoura, Portugal)
After a splendid evening in Porto, the next morning it was time to head out on our Atlantic coastal hike. We started by catching a ride up to Póvoa de Varzim, a major coastal resort area along the Atlantic coastline. Much of the initial hike was along Póvoa de Varzim’s waterfront, and since we were hiking in October, just after the main holiday season, the waterfront’s many, many small cafés and bars for the summer tourists had mostly gone into off-season mode, either closed entirely or limiting their operating hours. As we reached the northern outskirts of Póvoa de Varzim, the settlements all leave the water’s edge and retreat behind the large sand dunes the compose much of Portugal’s Atlantic seaboard, and the various stores and resort amenities thin out. But we knew there was at least one café in Aguçadoura that still regularly operates in the off-season, and that was our destination: Café Dunas.
DeCastro Novo de Gaia (Vila Nova de Gaia, Portugal)
Before departing on our coastal hike, we had a Saturday evening in Porto to do some light sightseeing and revisit some favorite sites. We had pretty thoroughly explored Porto in 2018, and one of the areas we liked visiting was the sister city of Vila Nova de Gaia on the other side of the Douro river, and after walking the waterfront and enjoying a Porto Tonico at one of the sidewalk cafés, it was time to consider dinner. Much of the time Porto is the quieter, more laid back city compared to Lisbon, but that doesn’t generally apply to weekends: Porto’s waterfront is absolutely hopping on the warmer weekends of the year, so it was important for us to find a place where we could get reservations, hopefully for some good Portuguese food to start to get us calibrated for our walk. After consulting The Fork (which seems to get more support in Europe than OpenTable), we booked a table at DeCastro Novo de Gaia.
Random Posts
Revolutionary Burger (Lebanon, NH)
30 Mar 2010
(Closed) Revolutionary Burger is a bit of an interesting experimental concept, in that they don’t have a storefront, and aren’t their own restaurant, they are basically a sub-restaurant of the local Lebanon restaurant, Gusanoz. Apparently, one of their employees recently went on a trip to Southern California, and really enjoyed a trip to iconic In-N-Out Burger, and decided to try making a similar burger here. So they invented the Rev Burger, which is their rendition of the basic In-N-Out-style California burger: 100% real beef, never frozen, char-broiled over open flame, a toasted bun, lettuce, tomato, onion and, of course, the “special sauce”. You can order it with american cheese as well, making a “Che Burger” (Anyone else chuckling at the irony of having the Che Burger made with American cheese?). You can even order them In-N-Out style, for example, ordering a “2×2” which is two patties and two slices of cheese. They also offer fresh-made fries, shakes, and beverages (basically, a similar small menu to the In-N-Out they are copying).
Durgin-Park (Boston, MA)
17 May 2013
(Closed) While my primary goal at Offbeat Eats is to document the obscure and unusual places out there, sometimes I still get to be a tourist. And when it came to finding a place to take several of my fellow walkers on our “Death March”, most of whom hadn’t spent a lot of time in Boston, for me the choice of venue was fairly obvious: Durgin-Park, one of Boston’s venerable restaurants, serving up Boston schrod, seafood, and steaks since 1826. Named after Messrs Durgin and Park who were the original owners of the place, it’s located in Quincy Market at 340 Faneuil Hall (North Market), a location its been inhabiting since it opened, albeit with some (minor) renovations (the plumbing in the men’s room appears to be date from the late Victorian era). One of the very notable things about Durgin-Park is that it’s one of those time capsule restaurants. Aside from a few (very few) tweaks to the menu, and obviously higher prices, the experience at Durgin-Park is almost exactly the same that I remember from my first visit in the late ’70s (and my visits in ’95, ’99, and ’01, for that matter), although the service doesn’t seem as surly as I recall from some of my previous visits (some of that is probably my getting used to the general surliness of Boston in general, to be honest). I’m sure that if you go back far enough in time you’d find a different experience, but the current Durgin-Park ambiance and menu harken back to at least the 1950s and the era of white-shirted servers and red-checked tablecloths. And that’s one of the reasons I like to go there, since it’s one of the oldest restaurants in the country, and one of the old respected seniors of Boston dining (along with nearby Jacob Wirth and the Union Oyster House, the latter of which goes back to the colonial era).
