Dining in Lisbon and South Portugal

[eternal]

We're headed back to Portugal for one last trip before the lady pops out our first young'n and hoping some of you have suggestions on great places to eat. We generally love the local, home-comfort type places. We loved DOC in the Douro on our last visit to Portugal. We were less thrilled by Pedro Lemos. We loved the sucking pig we ate in Maelhaeda (sp). We're going to be in Lisbon just a couple days and then onto the Algarve and will wander around. I've done almost zero research on this so far so I'll spend some time doing that too.

Thanks!

[eternal]

I'm going to respond to myself I got us lunch reservations at Vila Joya on the south coast. It is Portugal's only two-star restaurant. I've also booked us to eat dinner at Qunita da cebola vermelha (red onion). I don't think it'll be anything life changing but hopefully very local. I browsed around the NYT site and discovered some places in Lisbon but honestly, they all seem a little fancy. I think we'll stick to wandering around the Barrio Alto and looking for lots of salt code potatoes and sardines.

[eternal]

Here are the pics from our meal at Vila Joya. We both agreed that it was one of the best meals we've ever had. The service was outstanding, the view was amazing, the food was excellent. We ended up ordering ala carte because some of the items sounded better than the set menu. The nice thing was that you still got multiple amuse bouches and other touches. We never saw a wine list but the server recommended different wines for each course, including a 1964 white port at the end and they were all reasonably priced. We had a great time eating wonderful, decadent ingredients and being pampered. Well worth it

https://picasaweb.google.com/101315328255807109134/VILAJOYA?authkey=Gv1sRgCLiYiNqN85jm2AE#