Oh, Mel, I'm so glad you found it and liked it. A couple we met at VH took all their lunches and dinners there--better food, better prices.

Keep those wonderful photos coming, we're all enjoying them so much and living vicariously through your adventures!

OMG, that lunch! I can feel my waistband expanding even as I look at it!

We split the salad, the dessert and the cheese plate...small consolation for my backside

Your posts are making me consider another trip to Portugal. We have never been treated so well by locals anywhere we have traveled. And those pastels de nata, a huge favorite of mine.

Mel, you wrote:

"Helena - what pray tell is codfish swim bladder stew? It was on tonight's menu."

Well, a stew is a stew, A way of cooking things. We do it a lot, mainly in South. I know that anciente Romans used to do stew of goat, in Algarve and Alentejo we use a lot stew of lamb, Spanish also have stews, I believe it has some Morocco influence.

So if I say "My lunch is going to be a stew", you ask "of what?" and I say of what. It can be a fish stew (the more common), or whatever.

In this case it was a stew of the swim bladder of a nice codfish. Swim bladder: that thing the fish uses to swim. Like birds use their wings to fly.

Stew is the technique, swim bladder is the main ingredient, and that ingredient is from codfish.

I'm here trying to understand what you don't understand, and perhaps it is strange to you that we eat the swim bladders of that (and other) fish. I think that is what surprised you. Well, we do. We also eat their tongues (well... I don't), and a very expensive dish is "caras de bacalhau", codfish faces (literally).

There is a (very good and expensive) restaurant in Leça da Palmeira, Matosinhos, named "Chanquinhas", whose most famous dish is the head (just the head) of a fish (the name of the fish is "pescada", google translates to "hake"). Yet, many people from many countries don't eat the head of fishes. It's just a cultural thing.

Thursdays, thank you, you made me think with this you wrote:

"I really don't get why you have a problem with this. Portuguese don't eat with port, Brits do, and both had a hand in creating port. Now, if you are complaining about drinking port with the main course, rather than with the cheese or just maybe the dessert course, I'm with you."

I think it is because I have a long history of people drinking port with the main course. Port can be either an apperitif or a digestif, so I guess it's ok with some appetizers or desserts. But I'm not the best person to talk about it, because I don't like port wine.

Helena - I recently encountered swim bladders as food in a book on Japanese cuisine, but growing up in England and living in the US I had never heard of eating one before.

I agree that port does not go with the main course! (But I'm sorry that you don't like it.)

Mel, another excellent set just now. Glad to see that you are enjoying yourselves.
Port wine: back in '88 I came this close to buying my beloved father a dusty old bottle of 1865 Malmsey, while my friend and I were on Madeira.
Decided that I could not afford such a gift after all.
Carry on!

I am done. the following

Mel,
The excellent Quinta do Noval has a new tasting room down by the pier. I don't know if they serve food items as well as port wine tastings, but you might check it out.
https://www.quintadonoval.com/en/wine-shops.

zebec - I'd be afraid to ask the cost of that 1865 port!

Thank you for the explanation Helena - I'd not seen swim bladder on a menu before, but I'm all for head to tail eating...just as long as I'm not the one doing the eating.

Maribel we saw the Quinta do Noval yesterday and may have to look into it.

I'm trying to save my best photos for the actual trip report. These are just a taster.

<<I'm trying to save my best photos for the actual trip report. These are just a taster.>>

Maybe one or two? Pretty please?

Wow!!! These photos are awesome! I can't imagine how much better your "best photos" will be. Your photos have convinced me we need to return to Portugal. Our first trip was very short, just 5 nights in Lisbon including a day trip to Sintra. But there are so many places we haven't seen that I don't know where to begin after we return from Greece in May! A nice problem to have!

Mel, regarding that old port (actually 1863), from my '88 Trip Journal notes:

Mon. Dec. 26 Funchal
'Kev and I joined a large Scandinavian group for our tour of the Madeira Wine co. A pretty blonde staffer noticed our lack of comprehension and took us aside for our own private tour with her in English ("Did we tell you that we're both rock musicians?"). Heady addictive tastings: Malvasia, Sercial, Verdelho and Bual. Saw a bottle of '52 'Rainwater' going for $100 Am. Seemed a bargain. But my fave was the dusty bottle of 1863 Malmsey @$300. Nearly bought it for Dad.'

I am done. the old notes, the pretty blonde and the ancient port

What a day. A rather challenging and deeply frustrating six mile hike amongst the vines at Quinta das Carvelahas...good wine and bad food at Vale do Tabua Wine & Tapas on the waterfront...god how I hate feeling like mullet! Blue skies, but crazy windy...dinner booked for later if we can stay awake. These late meals take their toll on us old yanks.

Maribel - passed Quinta do Noval after the bad lunch above, didn't see any food on the menu

Ladies loo, the Vintage House Hotel

Walking across the bridge to Quinta das Carvalhas

Views from Quinta das Carvalhas

Orange trees

Douro River and the Vintage House Hotel

Douro River views

Views from Quinta das Carvalhas vineyard hike

Views from Quinta das Carvalhas vineyard hike

Cherry blossoms

Good wine, nice views, terrible food

@zebec - Malmsey is Madeira, not Port. See: https://topcookingstories.com/librar...sherry-or-port

@Melnq8 - sorry about the food. Some things even good wine cannot redeem. I have never found vineyards very attractive, but the river and trees look good.

Mel,
Thanks for the warning about Val do Tabua. I'll avoid it like the plague in Nov. The bathroom tiles at the VH are really beautiful.

Love the views of the Douro! Gorgeous day with wonderful views. Even if the hike was frustrating, you did end up with some great pix. And the wine, at least, sounds like it was satisfying, even if the food wasn’t.

Ditto to what Maribel said - those tiles at the VH are great!

I have never found vineyards very attractive, but the river and trees look good.

I love the vineyards of NZ and Australia. When they're green that is

The ones here in the Douro are unlike any I've ever seen, and no doubt much prettier when they're green.

Winding down in Pinhão.


Riverfront

Cruise boat along riverfront

Grounds of Vintage House Hotel

Grounds of Vintage House Hotel

Mel,
This is how the Douro looks the first week of November-


On the road to Ervedosa do Douro

The Vintage House pool, always open but too cold to swim!

A view of Quinta das Carvalhas from Quinta da Roêda

Fall colors

Quinta da Roêda vineyards

More fall colors

And in October from our perch at Quinta do Pégo


After the harvest the colors explode

The view from the Miradouro de São Leonardo de Galafura, northeast of Régua


Our "home", the Quinta do Pégo