Porto

As a bit of a birthday treat we spent a night in Porto which is only a 2 hour train journey from Vigo. We had some amazing food and lots of port in the two days we spent here.

This bad boy/girl is a Francesinha, a speciality sandwich in Porto.

It varies from place to place but should contain wet cured ham, smoked sausage, fresh sausage and steak. Its then covered in melted cheese and a thick beer and tomato sauce. It tastes as good as it looks and this one was had at Cafe Majestic.

The main aim of this trip was to try as many different ports as possible. All the main port houses are within walking distance of each other although there is a pretty steep hill to climb for some of them. We visited Taylors first and started off with a refreshing white port. We had to neck it because the tour pretty much started as we got our drink!

Taylors largest barrel is absolutely massive!

The tour finishes off in their gardens with a glass of their LBV (late bottled vintage, tastes like vintage port but has less aging in the bottle) and their 10 year old tawny.

Impressive recycling of bottles and barrels.

Next stop was just down the road at Croft

We tried their Pink Port and Tawny.

We had my Birthday dinner at ODE Porthouse. This restaurant was really special, the main emphasis is on home style food, comfort and good service which is purposely slow and the whole experience lasted nearly 4 hours. Every dish is made to order from scratch and is heavily influenced on the owners Grandmothers recipes. We really recommend this place. All the Appetisers are placed in front of you as is the tradition in Portugal. So what we have here is Bread from Bragança & Avintes, Butter from Açores, Olives from Trás-os-Montes with Oregano from Algarve and Olive oils from Trás-os-Montes & Alentejo. This is what we decided to pick at, the other dishes were Soft Unpasteurized Sheep's Milk Cheese from Alentejo and 'Salpicáo de Bisaro' or Smoked Pork Loin from Minho. The waitress got a huge map of Portugal out and explained all of these dishes and where they are sourced in great detail. We could have easily tucked into all of these but showed some restraint as we knew we were going to be eating loads. 

Salad of Lettuce, D.O.P Cheese, Dry Fruits, Dry Seeds and Chestnut Tree Honey

Soup of Fresh Puréed Vegetables

Grilled Free Range Black Pork with Apple, Orange, Carrot and Cabbage

Grilled Free Range Fillet Steak, ODE Porto Reduction, Potato Purée and Fresh Broccoli.

Ignore the glugger, this was an amazing chocolate dessert- 'Sleeping Volcano nearby a Tangerine Glacier' with a birthday candle! Thanks Christopher!

Carrie had a Pudding which was the owners Grandmothers recipe.

The evening was finished off with two glasses of ODE Reserve Tawny Port brought over by the owner and on the house. Everything was fresh, homemade and delicious, really can't recommend this place enough.

I decided I needed to compare Francesinhas, so for lunch on our second day we went to Cafe Pimms and this was actually better. The sauce was a lot richer and the meats inside were tastier.

We made a quick stop at Offley and tried four of their ports- LBV, Ruby Forrester Reserva, Tawny and Tawny 10 Yr.

Sandeman gives the most expensive tour but the least port, the white port was pretty good though.

Up the hill again, this time to Cockburns.

We missed the tour but decided to have something a bit more special for our last glass.

Their 20 yr old Tawny was really good.