Great Lunch Quickly

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Traditionally, Tasca is a Portuguese word for a place to have good, tasty food: fast and with a reasonable price.  If you travel through Portugal, in the small villages, as well as in the bigger cities, you can usually find a tasca. They are characterized by lack of modern decor, they have large, shared tables or lots of small ones close together. The menu is normally reduced to two or three daily options, and is served as a complete menu: soup, main plate, dessert, coffee - and of course the bread and the olives. Tascas usually have a cheap house wine served in a jug.  The best part of the tascas is that normally the food is delicious, honestly Portuguese and cheap.  Service is fast and without frills. Without the drinks, you will find the menu to be between 7 and 10 euros per person.

In Sintra we still have a few tascas: Tasca do Manel is the traditional kind, where you can sit together with the mayor and the carriage drivers: anyone wanting to eat well quickly. Tasca do Xico is a tasca with a twist - a more modern version with details and a larger menu.  With more menu options in addition to the daily deal, it is a proper, small restaurant with an old fashioned name that is also open in the evenings, with live music on the weekend evenings.  It is also one of the most popular places for dining of our guests. When I moved to Portugal 20+ years ago, Tasca do Xico had gotten it's name from the rooster that lived in the restaurant and the street, with the name of Xico.  Now there's a toy-rooster by the kitchen to carry on the name.

The rest of this blog entry was written by Olla-Riitta Aarikka, a frequent visitor from Finland.  



When travelling I usually enjoy eating local food. I don’t think there’s much point in going to Portugal, for example, to eat meatballs and potatoes - that I can get at home! Naturally it is already nice just not to have to cook yourself  but I really think you get a lot more out of your trip if you eat ‘locally’. The problem, however, is usually that I don’t want to spend the entire day just sitting in a restaurant, waiting for my meal. So I was really happy to find out that in Portugal you can eat local food quickly and without spending a fortune!
In Sintra there are many places to choose from! Yes, there is your Pizza Hut if that’s what you want but I highly recommend Portuguese restaurants! There are many different types of places to choose from and this year I decided to try a few small ‘café-lunch – restaurants’ TASCAS.
Manel behind the counter of  the Tasca do Manel
There seem to be many little places, but I was really happy to find a small place right next to the beautiful city hall: Tasca do Manel. They had a small selection of lunch dishes to choose from – I tried the duckrice which I think is a typical Portuguese dish and it was worth it. The people in the next table were having some kind of a sausage dish– that looked very tempting as well.  I got the food really fast, it was really good and totally affordable!  And I had a good time trying out my two words of Portuguese!

The staff at Tasca do Xico is very friendly
Another place that I tried was right in the middle of the historical centre  and it was called Tasca do Xico. This place is a little bigger than the first one, has a little larger menu and there were clearly more turists in this place (probably due to the location). The place was packed at lunch time and I took that as a sign that it was indeed a great place to eat.The staff was really friendly and they spoke English very well – and their menu was also in English! I chose to try their vegetable dish and it was sooooooo good! It looked good and tested even better! Actually I have eaten some of my best vegetarian dishes in Portugal!




It was certainly a right decision to eat locally! I got a lot more out of my stay and really enjoyed the food! The only thing I regret is that I didn’t ask for the recipe  for that vegetable dish! (well – isn’t that a wonderful excuse to go back?)

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