When we stopped at a gas station to use the rest room, I had the impression that I had been at a similar place before.

This was the menu of the day when we stopped for gas in Val D’Orcia Tuscany. I had a hunch we were in for a similar experience so we decided to stop for lunch. There was no menu and even though we expected that the owners would speak English because the sign outside of their restaurant said “Take Away”, our server got kind of frustrated with us when we could not communicate. This was no fault of hers. We had not prepared well enough in advance to communicate our needs. Luckily for us, our server got inventive and brought us out two small plates: one with fava beans and the second with pork. So we gestured to the pork and she was very pleased to be understood.

The pork was absolutely delicious as well as the hand made fries, rice, salad and half a carafe of house wine!

D was also pleased with his rice pudding and I with my baked apple for dessert. Espressos rounded out our lunch and the bill was 17 Euros for both of us! Even after all that food, we did get hungry that evening and D wanted a feed for fish and chips. First we walked to a place in Alvor called Marco’s. Even though our Google searches indicated that it was open, it was definitely closed. The sign said “See you in March”. D went to fetch the car and we drove to a restaurant that we had passed many times on our way in and out of Alvor.

The restaurant was called Mula Cheia which we found out translated to the full mule in English. As a result we predicted that we would leave the restaurant very satiated.

D ordered the sea bass which was tasty but not what D was thinking of when he was dreaming about fish and chips.

I chose Piri Piri chicken which I loved; the fries and the salad not so much. I was still thinking about the hand cut fries from that afternoon when we stopped at the gas station. But on the whole, another fabulous day in the Algarve.

Kath’s quote: “You can’t go wrong with fish and chips”.-Michael Sandel

Love never fails.

Share on Facebook