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.
Fortaleza is located mere meters from the Praia de Ancora, and in the off season has one of those nice “solarium” style outdoor dining areas with supplemental heating, which is where we got seated for our visit, enjoying the views of the beach and passers-by. Fortaleza’s menu is basically “upscape Portuguese”, with a nice selection of seafood and grilled meat main courses.
Dan and Sophie both went for the seafood menu, deciding to split the Dan and Sophie got the Espetada de Lulas e Camarão (seafood skewers with prawn and squid) for two, which was two very-generously portioned skewers with very nicely grilled vegetables, whole prawns, and bits of squid, served hot off the grill with a nice hot pepper sauce.
For my main course I went for the Bife à Pimenta, basically a steak frites with pepper sauce. Everything worked well here; like most places in Portugal I’ve been, the beef itself was really good, cooked to a proper medium rare with a nice sear (underneath the sauce), and the pepper sauce was particularly bold and flavorful. This dish was really good, but realistically, this was more than enough food for two people.
Carol, meanwhile, went for the roasted bacalhau. Nominally a slab of roasted bacalhau with a nice crumb crust over a bed of potatoes, like my Bife à Pimenta, the portioning here was almost astonishingly large. There was almost kilo of bacalhau, almost enough food for the entire table (although Dan particularly dislikes bacalhau). Indeed, this was served as a portion for one (and I even checked our bill); I’m almost scared to see what the portion for two is like. Despite that, this was a decent execution of a roasted bacalhau, with a nice, flaky interior with a good texture, a nice crust, and a good overall flavor, especially as the juices from the bacalhau ooze down into the potatoes.
Really, I liked Fortaleza: the location is nice, the staff friendly (particularly to hikers and pilgrims, which are a major portion of their business in the off season), but other diners are advised to research portion size here and order accordingly.
