UMA Marisqueira

A friend recommended that we go to a small old restaurant in the old town for a simple dinner. I say it is simple because the restaurant only has one dish, which is seafood risotto. The waiter is an old gentleman who is very talkative; there is no need to order dishes or anything else, just count the number of people and ask what kind of wine you want. The chef is also of similar age, and he personally serves the dishes and gives a simple introduction. Of course, we have to guess. The general meaning is that the restaurant has been open for fifty years and has specialized in seafood risotto for nearly twenty years. Asked if they are brothers? They said no, they are just lifelong friends! The business has not been very good in the past two years, otherwise there would be no seats. The seafood risotto is really delicious and suits the Chinese taste very well.

This restaurant is easy to find near the St. Lake Towers elevator. The facade is not impressive and looks like a family restaurant, but it is very lively inside. You don't need to look at the menu when you enter the restaurant. Just tell the waiter how many people are dining. The restaurant will make the corresponding amount of paella according to the number of people. It is recommended to go early, otherwise you can only queue outside the store. It is worth mentioning that although Portugal is close to Spain, the paella here is indeed very different from that of its neighboring countries and is more suitable for our Chinese stomach. (Only cash is accepted, no credit cards!!!)

A very famous small restaurant in Lisbon, just around the corner next to the elevator. Although the restaurant is small, it is always crowded. The most distinctive feature here is the paella. Different from the one in Seville, the paella here comes with soup, which feels like a small rice bowl. The crabs and shrimps in it are very large and the price is not expensive.

We arrived at 3:00 local time and waited for less than 10 minutes. The restaurant is small and the seats are crowded. There is no Chinese menu, but there are English, Korean and Japanese menus. In fact, you don’t need to look at the menu. There is only seafood risotto, which is charged per person, 12.5 per person. It is salty as usual, but the ingredients are fresh and the rice is cooked. The caramel pudding is too sweet and eggy. The service is the worst I have encountered in Spain and Portugal. It’s not only unenthusiastic, but it made me feel racial discrimination for the first time. They only ordered seafood risotto for us, and didn’t order anything else. The owner is an old man who doesn’t speak English. We looked at the desserts on other tables and insisted on asking for them several times before they served us. We waited a long time to order seafood risotto. The Koreans who came after us ate ours but ours was not served.

The restaurant is near the internet-famous elevator, a small shop, basically the size of more than ten tables for two people. Most of the people eating in the restaurant are Asian faces, either Chinese or Korean. We only saw one table of European faces during the meal. There is only one girl in the store who can speak English, and she will tell you directly that the store only sells one dish, seafood rice. The amount of rice is also determined according to the number of diners, and it is served in a pot instead of one pot per person, which is very different from other seafood rice. The seafood rice tastes good, with plenty of crab roe, but there is a little too much soup, and it always feels like it is not an authentic European method. However, the service in the store is not very good, and diners are not provided with tools to eat crabs, so the crab claws can't bite open the meat at all, just taste it. In addition, you are told that only cash is accepted when you check out, which is very unpleasant, so I don't recommend it.