She told me about it and we were intrigued... were these caracóis similar to the famous French escargots? We decided we had to try them. We asked about caracóis everywhere. The answer was invariably that they had them but they were finished, we could try again in a couple of hours. On the last evening, we were walking in Praça da Figueira, doing some window shopping, when we spotted a restaurant with tables outside. Two women at one of the tables had a pile of empty shells in front of them. Caracóis! We asked them if they had enjoyed them and they said yes, so we sat down and ordered some.
The waiter, who was quite a character, informed us that they HAD some, but we'd have to wait an hour until they were available again. We couldn't leave Lisbon without trying the caracóis, so we ordered a couple of beers and waited. They arrived and looked nothing like escargots. They were tiny and looked like snails fresh from the garden, but in a sauce with some bay leaves.
We didn't know how to eat them, so we asked the waiter. He said that most people picked them out with toothpicks, but he had a different method, and asked if he could pick one of them to show us, we said of course, and he just sucked the critter straight from the shell. We started eating, using both methods. They were delicious, but there were far too many. We ate and ate and ate, but the pile stayed the same... Then a couple sat next to us and we noticed they were American. We started chatting to them.
They were from Saratoga, but had a house in the Algarve, where they had lived for many years. Their daughter was raised in Portugal, but decided to go to university in New York, so now they spend their time between the two countries. We asked them if they liked caracóis, they said yes, and we quickly asked for their help with our perennial pile. I mentioned my blogs and when a certain name came up, they burst out laughing: "What a ridiculous person!"
We had to leave because we had a reservation at another restaurant, but we really enjoyed the caracóis and meeting progressive Anne and Larry.
We had met another American earlier on the trip and he was very different from Anne and Larry. I'll tell you about him some other time.
[All photos are from google images.]
