CASA DO VALLE

'Do you have a restaurant that you can recommend' ? is one of the questions we most answer here at Casa do Valle.  Yes, we can recommend many, and there are many we don't recommend. We base our information on two things: on our guest-to-guest book and our consequent visits. We have a book where our guests write to the future guests what they have most enjoyed, least enjoyed, what they would recommend doing and where they would recommend eating  - and also NOT eating.  We also ask that our guests bring cards of the restaurants they enjoyed and place them in the guests' common space, the internet house. Recently a few new places started appearing in these comments.  This entry is of two of them, with a nice view of and over the town.  We visited both of them (easily by foot from Casa do Valle), and found them worth writing about. Wine Bar Bistrô da Praça The Port Wine Shop in the main street of town opened a wine bar on the 1st floor - with a ...

Gluten free bread for breakfast Many of our guests are still surprised when they order their breakfast and we ask if they prefer gluten or lactose free products - or if they want tomato to substitute the ham when they say they are vegetarian.  This is not common in Portugal.  Though the Portuguese bread is fantastic and cheeses are really tasty, unfortunately many places in Portugal  fail to recognize that there are increasingly many people with a condition that prevents them from enjoying these things, and thus would like an alternative. We seem to make an exception here, offering both lactose free and gluten free products in our breakfasts. There is a similar situation with vegetarian food - if you want anything other than a salad, know that the Portuguese do have excellent soups, and often even the coffee shops have a soup of the day option. Many places in town offer an omelet or a pasta as a vegetarian option, but not so many where you can safely order your ...

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 q...

Many of our clients are surprised by the wine lists of the local restaurants: in addition to the division of 'Reds' and 'Whites' there are the 'Greens'. The Reds and the Whites then are divided into the wine regions; Greens, if divided at all, may be divided into Green Whites or Green Reds. So what are the Green wines, the Vinho Verdes? The most known Greens are white, but there are reds as well. They are best served chilled and make a great aperitif - and go very well with fish, seafood, salads, white meats, sushi, sashimi - and are great drink on a hot summer day. As their alcohol content is lower than that of the other wines (8-11,5%), so is their calory amount, and this makes it an 'easily drinkable' wine. Vinho Verde has great digestive properties due to its freshness and special qualities. The reds are full-bodied wines with an intense colour and a rosy or lig ht red foam. The whites usually present a lemony or straw colour. The strong disti...

As I have mentioned before, I frequently walk in the mornings with my dog; up and down the hills, into the forest and mountain roads. Recently there has been an extra burden on my walks. It is lent, the 40 days between Carnival and Easter. Tradition says you give up something for those 40 days that is like an addiction. Some people give up coffee, others chocolate or cigarettes. I decided to give up bread and pastries made with white wheat flour. And this is the reason that climbing up the 400 meters to town is now doubly difficult: the bakeries and pastry shops open their doors even before Pandora and I take off from home, so we walk up to town with the irresistible scent of freshly baked goodies lingering over the town center, calling my name - which I am patiently (more and less) ignoring. Sintra is famous for its pastries. The pastries of Piriquita, travesseiros , are famous all over Portugal, and people cue up to buy them to take home by boxes. These long, sugar coded ...

The Portuguese love a good meal. And they love their families. SO - you often get the whole families in restaurants: the grandparents, the uncles, the children, the cousins... Sometimes if you just want to go for a relaxing lunch as a couple having other people's children running around is tiresome. And other times it's your own children that are impatiently awaiting to go home while you would still like to continue your meal in peace (as the Portuguese meals tend to take a long time). One of the restaurants that recently has become popular amongst our clients is Crôa on Praia Grande. Literally ON Praia Grande, high up on top, overlooking the beach, facing the sea. Beautiful place for sunsets! Crôa is one of these family owned and run restaurants that has lasted and lasted, always knowing what needs to be changed and kept to stay popular. It is also wonderful for family lunches as it has a fabulous fenced-in play-park between the terrace and the parking. A wonderful id...

Recently coffee has been in the news in Portugal: it seems that each Portuguese consumes a little over 4 kgs of coffee a year. This is an equivalent of 1-2 coffees per person per day, well below the 6kg per person European average (and much below the Finnish 10kgs/person/year average). This surprised me, as it seems that there is a coffee shop in every street corner and they do have a lot of custom! The Portuguese may not drink as much coffee as you would imagine, but boy have they made it a wonderful habit! Most Portuguese drink the strong expresso type coffee and mostly not at home. A morning coffee on the way to work, another after lunch, and a third one after dinner, especially if the dinner has been in a restaurant. This is the typical scene and can continue to be so as long as coffee continues as reasonable as it is. When you visit a Portuguese house, however, contrary to the Northern European habit that I am used to, you will not be offered a coffee, but a glass of wine, a beer,...

Saudade , if you look it up from the dictionary, means Nostalgia in English. In the Portuguese dictionary the word is explained as 'sadness caused by missing someone or something' AND as 'greetings'. The word includes both happiness and sadness, a longing for. Saudade, the Life and Art of Portuguese People , is a coffee-place, a tea room, a place to gather to listen to music. For me, O Saudade is one of the only places where you can sit with your book, newspaper or laptop, enjoying a cup of coffee and a long conversation with your best friend and beautiful cakes, and not be harassed. It is what one of our clients described as 'The Wonderful Jazz Café just before the Station on the Right'. O Saudade opened at the end of June 2009. The first week of July we already had two nice comments about in our Guest to Guest book. The truth is, it gained immediate popularity. Mary and João have lovingly turned one of the original 5 cheese cake factories of Sintra, Ma...

Tulha's Bar is by far the #1 restaurant of our visitors. It is also one of the restaurants mentioned in many of the guide books. There are many reasons: the service is friendly, menu is typically Portuguese but varied, portions are large, price is accessible - these are a few. And it is also just 10 minutes by foot from Casa do Valle, right in the Historical Center, between the Church and the Tourism Office. Tulha's is one of the restaurants that has been around 'forever'. In the last 20+ years that I have lived here, they have changed cooks only once and the owners and some of the staff have been here all this time. A converted, old grain warehouse, it is small, only 10 tables, and it is always busy. The service is fast and pleasant, there is always a smile and a free glass of Port waiting for you. For those who want to taste the Portuguese culinary specialties like Duck Rice or Cream-baked Cod, this is the place: everyday there is a different specialty on the ...

Sintra has a long coast and excellent beaches -and on one of its most famous beaches, Praia das Maçãs, there is an excellent Seafood restaurant 'Búzio'. Right on the main road, with the day's catch of fish and shellfish on view in a see-through fridge, this restaurant has long been the favorite of the local sea-food lovers - and has also become the favorite seafood spot of our clients. It is about 10 kms or a 10-minute drive, from Casa do Valle, with private parking and easy access with the local transports. (In the pictures above you can see some of the fresh fish, the newly decorated main dining hall and my daughter choosing her dinner as one of the owners, Luís Alberto, looks on). This family restaurant first opened in 1959 and has since passed from parents to children and their spouses. I have been a customer for over 20 years and seen many 'face lifts', turning the restaurant each time more and more stylish, yet staying comfortable. One thing that has not ...