Wines, spirits, and liqueurs of foreign origin are expensive at the Braganza, as they are everywhere else, owing to the high custom tariff ; but the local wines, amongst which may be cited Collares, Collares Branco, Serradayres white and red, Bucellas, are all good and cheap table wines. Lombadas (from Madeira) and Monte Banzao (from a spring in the pine-woods west of Cintra) are the best table-waters. I stayed myself at the Avenida Palace Hotel, and 304 Tdhe Gourmet's Guide to The Avenida Hotel, Rua do Principe host. The Cafe Tavares, Rua Largo do S. Roque Europe found the cookery there neither good enough to praise nor bad enough to condemn. Lisbon has half-a-dozen restaurants, but I did not experiment in them all. My first visit was to the Cafe Tavares, where Senor Calderia is the restaurant is in the Rua Largo do S. Roque. The front room is cream- coloured and has large mirrors on its walls. Behind this big room is a nest of rakish-looking little private rooms with ground- glass doors. In these rooms the young bloods of Lisbon revel from midnight until the small hours. For their convenience there is a back door in the Rua das Gaveas. There is a good table dThbte lunch served for 600 reis, and a table d'hote dinner for 800 reis. I went to the Tavares at lunch-time, and found that I was entitled for my money to hors dPoeuvre, three other dishes selected from the bill of fare, cheese and fruits. I selected Anguilles a la Portugaise as one of my plats, hoping that it might be a national dish. The eels were just like any other stewed ones, with a thick brown sauce. In search of the national dishes I dined at the Leao d’Ouro in the Rua do Principe kept by Antonio Leao d’Ouro, Monteiro, and found it a rather bare Rua do Principe but perfectly clean room with big pic- tures of river scenery and game in heavy wooden frames on the green walls, and a pleasant suggestion of Bohemianism in the company, for most of the men who sat at the tables of bent wood and marble looked as though they were men of the pen, or brush, or of the sock and buskin. A great golden lion rampant on the wine counter explains the name of the house. The meals of the Golden Lion are a la carte. I knew that Sopa de Camarao , a bisque of prawns, is a specialty of the house, so I ordered this as my soup, put my finger on to the fish which had the strangest Portugal 305 name, and appealed to the waiter to select for me a typical Portuguese dish as my meat. He suggested Dobrada — at least the name sounded like “ Dobrada ” — and I assented. The soup was excellent. The un- known fish tasted like mackerel, and the Dobrada was a mixture wherein were tripe and bacon and scraps of fowl and many beans. My bill for soup, fish, Dobrada , cheese, a pint of Bucellas, coffee, and a liqueur of Bene- dictine was 850 reis, which sum is less than 4s. Lisbon is quite a cheap city in which to lunch and dine. The Cafe Suisso, close to the central railway station, is the most crowded in Lisbon, and towards nightfall it is the principal haunt of Portugal’s too numerous politicians. The cook knows how to dress a kid (always a better dish than mutton in Portugal), but his efforts are not otherwise remarkable. At the Estrella d’Ouro, in the Rua Bella da Rainha (popularly called the Rua da Prata), one can sit in a cabinet and eat all one wants of the national dishes a la carte.

AI-modernized reading of the original text

Wines, spirits, and liqueurs of foreign origin are expensive at the Braganza, as they are everywhere else, owing to the high custom tariff ; but the local wines, amongst which may be cited Collares, Collares Branco, Serradayres white and red, Bucellas, are all good and cheap table wines. Lombadas (from Madeira) and Monte Banzao (from a spring in the pine-woods west of Cintra) are the best table-waters. I stayed myself at the Avenida Palace Hotel, and The Gourmet's Guide to The Avenida Hotel, Rua do Principe host. The Cafe Tavares, Rua Largo do S. Roque Europe found the cookery there neither good enough to praise nor bad enough to condemn. Lisbon has half-a-dozen restaurants, but I did not experiment in them all. My first visit was to the Cafe Tavares, where Senor Calderia is the restaurant is in the Rua Largo do S. Roque. The front room is creamcoloured and has large mirrors on its walls. Behind this big room is a nest of rakish-looking little private rooms with groundglass doors. In these rooms the young bloods of Lisbon revel from midnight until the small hours. For their convenience there is a back door in the Rua das Gaveas. There is a good table d'hôte lunch served for 600 reis, and a table d'hote dinner for 800 reis. I went to the Tavares at lunch-time, and found that I was entitled for my money to hors dPoeuvre, three other dishes selected from the bill of fare, cheese and fruits. I selected Anguilles a la Portugaise as one of my plats, hoping that it might be a national dish. The eels were just like any other stewed ones, with a thick brown sauce. In search of the national dishes I dined at the Leao d’Ouro in the Rua do Principe kept by Antonio Leao d’Ouro, Monteiro, and found it a rather bare Rua do Principe but perfectly clean room with big pictures of river scenery and game in heavy wooden frames on the green walls, and a pleasant suggestion of Bohemianism in the company, for most of the men who sat at the tables of bent wood and marble looked as though they were men of the pen, or brush, or of the sock and buskin. A great golden lion rampant on the wine counter explains the name of the house. The meals of the Golden Lion are a la carte. I knew that Sopa de Camarao , a bisque of prawns, is a specialty of the house, so I ordered this as my soup, put my finger on to the fish which had the strangest Portugal 305 name, and appealed to the waiter to select for me a typical Portuguese dish as my meat. He suggested Dobrada — at least the name sounded like “ Dobrada ” — and I assented. The soup was excellent. The unknown fish tasted like mackerel, and the Dobrada was a mixture wherein were tripe and bacon and scraps of fowl and many beans. My bill for soup, fish, Dobrada , cheese, a pint of Bucellas, coffee, and a liqueur of Benedictine was 850 reis, which sum is less than 4s. Lisbon is quite a cheap city in which to lunch and dine. The Cafe Suisso, close to the central railway station, is the most crowded in Lisbon, and towards nightfall it is the principal haunt of Portugal’s too numerous politicians. The cook knows how to dress a kid (always a better dish than mutton in Portugal), but his efforts are not otherwise remarkable. At the Estrella d’Ouro, in the Rua Bella da Rainha (popularly called the Rua da Prata), one can sit in a cabinet and eat all one wants of the national dishes a la carte.

The gourmet's guide to Europe