Today Captain Eliza requested blogs explaining what brought us here to Amistad. I've been asked this question many times before on dockside tours etc. so I've had plenty of time to think about it - and the answer iseasy: it was the food! In fact, I'm eating my breakfast cereal right now...    Last summer I was working my first traditional boat job on the Quinnipiack based out of New Haven Connecticut. This schooner, Amistad, shared a home dock with us there. They didn't come by all that often, and when they did, I remember  the boat looked huge. They'd pulled in one evening, and I was minding my own business next door, as per usual. The most amazing smells were wafting over on the breeze. At the time, I was preparing my usual meal of a Nutella sandwich on five grain bread. Needless to say, I dropped my "dinner" and stuck my head up to see where that smell was coming from.   

I wandered over to Amistad and got myself invited for dinner, cha-ching. During the meal, which was amazing, Captain Eliza dropped news of the transatlantic trip to Africa in the coming year... cha-ching. I'd been gunning for the deckhand job aboard ever since and now, here I am.   

The other night, I was standing an uneventful bow watch, and like I often do, fantasizing about the comforts of being at home. Now, generally, these I don't even have time for these sorts of thoughts, but when your job is to stand there, and watch - if you don't keep your imagination going, that station can get pretty monotonous. I was thinking about a Portuguese meal I'd had only a week ago. Now in general, I've been unimpressed with the restaurants in Cascais. I think they spend most of their energy in elaborate set ups, and dragging in customers from the street. Not so with Restaurante "O Fuso" in Arruda dos Vinhos. Barry, Eve, and myself were shown this place by a few neighbors of ours in Lisbon. We arrived on a Sunday afternoon, and the line was out the door with families dressed in church clothes. I walked to the back of the restaurant to use the bathroom, and I got very excited about what I saw on their grills. Steaks an inch and a half thick, fillets of fish no less than a foot long. Both of which were being grilled over a wood fired grill. I could tell the purchaser for this restaurant took his/her time and did a wonderful job obtaining the highest quality products. Restaurante "O Fuso" did have a similar feel to those touristic joints in Cascais, but somehow, they got it right. The steak was amazing, the fish was wonderful and unique, the whole experience was the real deal and I'd recommend it to anyone going to Portugal.

Restaurante "O Fuso"
Telefone: 263 975 121
2630-216 Arruda dos Vinhos
Contribuinte n.¼ 500 087 601

-mrDrew
 

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