Old and New Dining Choices

After a year on the island, I am surprised at how many places we have found to eat, but I am more surprised to learn there are restaurants we have yet to discover.  I am not kidding, we keep finding new places.  These are easier to find when you are out touring around on foot, or just driving in an area where we are not usually hanging out.  At the same time we have some favorites that we know are good and sometimes just want to get our favorite dishes.

This is place we just discovered in Angra.  When my mom and Joe were visiting, we walked by and I was shocked to notice it and never had seen it before although I had been by there and it has been there for a while.  Ryan and I decided to give it a shot for lunch.  We got there right before they closed for lunch.  most places close from 3-6 pm.

This is Patio.

It was nice to start off with some olives.

This was a treat because we usually do not get served this kind of cheese.  I like the goat cheese, but this cheese is really good too.

Bread, of course.

Of all the things, I forgot to take a picture and started picking the tons of onions off my salad and then just stared for a minute before I actually had to check the camera to confirm I had forgotten to take a picture.  Oh well, here is my grilled wreckfish.  Ryan ordered the same thing.

So if that was the new, which I am very glad we tried, here is the old.  If you remember Ryan's birthday dinner, we tried to go to Sabores do Chef, but they were too busy.  Later in the week, we tried again, with better luck.  This is one of our favorite restaurants.  It is great for special occassions because it is one of the nicest on the island, but it can also be reasonable for any night of the week.  That is what I like about this island.  Coming from Vegas, some meals were expensive and not worth it, and even though this place is expensive by the standards here, it is not compared to some of the meals we have had in Vegas.  Entree prices here are 12-22 euro, which is like $15-28.  It only gets expensive because they bring lots of appetizers to the table and you get charged for them, so if you really do not want something, don't let them leave it at the table.  If you add in dessert and wine, the price goes up too.  Actually, around here, wine is super cheap.  A bottle here can range from 7-12 euro, or $9-15.  In Vegas, that was the cost of a glass, not a bottle of wine.

On to the meal...

We enjoyed the goat cheese and jam.  This is one of those things they bring to the table.  The good news is they only charge once instead of a per person charge.  Plus, this is so good, it is worth it.

Bread to go with the spreads.  They also brought out herbed butter.

Ryan ordered the steak and pineapple kabob.  Joe ordered this when they were visiting, and we did not expect the bacon on it, but it looked good to Ryan, so he ordered it this time.

I could not resist the grilled lobster tail.  I am not kidding, this is the best lobster EVER!  My mom even confirmed that when she came to visit, and my mom has eaten a lot more lobster than I have.  It comes with homemade fries/chips, broccoli and jasmine rice.  My main focus was this lobster.  I will confess, I was a mess after eating this and pieces of shell had gone everywhere.  The problem was that the shell was too hot on the outside to touch so I had to find some way to start eating without touching it, until it did cool down.  no complaints here, it was delicious.

Yes, I ate my salad too.

I will be eating out when I can, or at least trying new places more often,  because I am working on a side project.  I will give everyone a sneak peak, as it is just getting started.  When Ryan and I went to move to the island, we found little information about things to do or places to go around here.  The problem was not a lack of information, but rather a language barrier.  The websites are Portuguese, so unless you are searching Portuguese words, you can't find much.  I decided to create a searchable blog to categorize places around the island and hope that when newcomers, and even current familiaes stationed here, search for something, my blog will appear in a google search to help them out.  I designed the site to just be a bunch of reviews and informational pieces, and not really like a blog where I enter something every day.  My goal is to have a bunch of available articles that people can search through with key words to find the information they are looking for.  So, check it out, and let me know what you think: Living at Lajes.

QUESTIONS:  Do you have a lot of restaurants near your home?  Do you like lobster?  Are there new restaurants you want to try?