I’ll set the stage. It was early afternoon and we were standing in Sintra and at that point  were making our plans on the fly for the rest of our day. Rather than having a late lunch there, we decided to hop an earlier train back to Lisbon to make a beeline to a restaurant that was on our “must visit” list.

In my mind, Cervejaria Ramiro, a down to earth seafood restaurant, had reached almost mythical proportions. As a former coastal dweller now landlocked in Saskatchewan, I was drooling at suddenly having unfettered access to fresh seafood for the first time in ages. I had read reviews of this place and had seen it on a Netflix special about six months earlier. It was love before first sight.

This didn’t have the initial hallmarks of a great meal. We were both a bit tired from being out in the sun all day hiking and our energy was a touch on the low side. When menus hit the table, there was almost too much choice. The slightly standoffish waiter was a bit impatient, but when my wife asked what she could eat that was gluten-free, he confidently started pointing out things. We looked at each other and kind of left the ordering with him…. he did not lead us astray.

Those fresh prawns above…. amazing! Has there ever been a better first dish on our respective travels? Maybe not. My mood and energy was starting to soar. Dishes kept hitting the table in rapid fire from a controlled-chaos kitchen that added theatre to the eating experience. Shrimp in garlic… delicious too!

Maybe the highlight was these giant tiger prawns. As we were digging into these and spraying prawn juice everywhere, we were both giddy with huge smiles across our respective faces.

And we couldn’t stop ordering, adding in an extra dish of clams. We were in a full-on seafood feast whose only limit was the capacity of our stomachs.

I had no more room. Honestly. I should have just asked for the cheque. I was full of multiple types of prawns, shrimp, clams and some home made garlic bread I was using to mop up the butter and juices of each dish. But there was one more required item, something unique to Ramiro. In fact, this one item was the thing that sealed this as a no-excuses-to-miss meal….

The roast beef sandwich for dessert. Yeah, a beef sandwich to end a meal at a seafood-only joint. You can tell by my face what kind of excited I was for this.

And then, against all sound advice coming from my brain and eating to the point of no return, you can see just how delicious this was.

Pictures do say a thousand words, so I’ll just leave those here. There are a couple of meals from our travels that we always reminisce about, and this afternoon seafood and beef sandwich cornucopia now has a permanent place in our travel stories.