I became interested in Portugal just after I started learning Portuguese. Yes, that's how it went. In short, less than a year has passed since I visited this southern European country. Portugal is not Spain. Although “poor” Spaniards go to Portugal for the weekend, considering it as their summer cottage, these two countries should not be confused, much less compared, as some people do.
In my opinion, a trip to Portugal can be quite budget-friendly. Prices are significantly lower than in other countries, even several times lower, for example, than in Germany. And the quality of the products is the highest. Fresh fish, meat, variety of cheeses, plenty of fruits and vegetables. And strong, strong, delicious coffee. By the way, about Portuguese coffee. In my experience, one of the most delicious I have ever tasted. And I brought home a couple of packs of Delta - the most advertised brand, much tastier than the Italian Lavazza, and cheaper. Why don't they sell it here?
I'll move on to the food. I'll start with the budget.
How much money do you need to eat in Portugal? Naturally, everyone's needs are different. But the portions in Portugal are large. For example, a typical Portuguese breakfast of coffee + cake is 1.5-2 euros. Affordable, right? Dinner lunch. Don’t forget about the Portuguese siesta, it’s even stranger than in Spain. Establishments can only open in the evening, from 8 o'clock. You have to get used to this schedule. The most expensive lunch we paid for was 35 euros for two. I’m afraid to imagine how much it would cost in Minsk - an appetizer (cheese, butter jam, buns), a huge fish with a side dish, grilled squid with a side dish, two bottles of wine. And this despite the fact that this is not a cheap establishment in Lisbon from the “marishkeria” class (specializing in fish).
In Cascais, in one of the establishments, there were a lot of people, the check for the evening was only 21 euros.
A few rules for choosing establishments:
Rule #1. Look for establishments for locals (in fact, just like everywhere else) and away from the attractions of Portugal, of which there are a lot at every turn. How to determine? There is a lot of garbage on the floor (it is customary to throw napkins under the table) and in some cases pensioners may be sitting, but they already know where to go.
Rule #2. Avoid snacks. The thing is, as soon as you sit down at the table, they will not only set it up for you and bring you cutlery, but also a snack (for which, of course, you have to pay, usually around 2-3 euros). I saw that usually the locals immediately warn “nao”.
Rule #3. Most cafes and restaurants have daily specials or the main dish of the establishment. There is more than one dish, 6-7 dishes, plenty of choice. And their price is from 3 to 7 euros, which is quite affordable. Here's an example menu below:
Rule #4. To eat for pennies, you can go to local canteens. In Porto I saw two of them, one of which was located right in the center. Would you like a lunch menu for 3 euros? Please! Soup (something like our cabbage soup), 3 fish (mackerel) with potatoes, 0.375 house wine in a carafe. Nourishing, cheap, tasty.
Rule #5. There is no point in searching through the Internet in advance, because there are no problems with the restaurant business in Portugal; at every step there are a lot of cafes for every taste and color. Walk around, enjoy yourself, look at the price tags hanging on the doors.
What to try in Portugal?
Wine. More specifically: vinho verde. Light carbonated wine, a wonderful relief in the heat.
Beer. More specifically: Sagres. Divine beer. How do the Portuguese manage to produce such delicious beer?
Port wine. In Porto they pour it at every turn.
Coffee. The Portuguese drink good coffee. And no less than the Spaniards or Italians. There are many varieties, the most interesting is biko - a tiny cup of very strong (and very thick) coffee. Helps you wake up.
Local kitchen:
– simply a must-use. Simple and inexpensive food, the Portuguese are absolutely obsessed with sardines. Delicious fish and inexpensive. A serving of 4-5 pieces with a side dish of potatoes costs 5-7 euros.
Cod or bacalao. What do the Portuguese not do with it? But all the dishes turn out to be delicious.
Salmon and tuna. Excellent salmon steaks, and for only 5-6 euros.
Sea fish. There are a lot of species here. Once the cook tried to explain to me the difference between these fish. Well, I tortured him! After 20 minutes, restaurant patrons joined him. I had to point my finger at the one that seemed larger.
(translated as “little French girl”). I saw and tried it in Porto. In simple words, this is a huge sandwich, generously topped with cheese sauce. Served with French fries. I don’t think that if you eat this sandwich every day, you will become a little French girl. The portion is large. In principle, it’s delicious, until you realize that in one of the layers in the middle lies... the stomach.
Rabbit. Rabbit dish for 4 euros? In Portugal everything is possible. A huge plate of rabbit with pepper and tomato sauce. It's delicious.
Specialty cakes from Portugal. And if they are still real Belem...
There are many different cheeses to try in Portugal. For dessert, many cafes serve cheese with marmalade. Overeating, honestly.
Everything is tasty and affordable. Have a delicious trip!
E Yes, in Portugal, mostly simple and without showing off.
Fish is consumed in any form - boiled and fried, salted and raw... the country is by the sea, after all, the Portuguese eat fish more than anyone else in Europe (as they believe). In restaurants "for tourists" they mainly offer pork chops, something like goulash, chicken cutlets, various sausages (don't take them) and world classic side dishes - rice or French fries with chopped vegetables...
Most restaurants offer traditional Portuguese cuisine. The menu also includes its own regional original dishes, such as beef tripe with vegetables. Most restaurants in Porto focus on fish, which is understandable - the country is on the coast Atlantic Ocean. Vegetables are preferred raw or boiled. The most popular are potatoes, beans, carrots, cauliflower.
There are a lot of exotics and they are not always at an increased price. For example, “Cusido a Portuguesa” is a dish for those who are really hungry. This traditional Portuguese dish is not very difficult to prepare. You need to take all the meat in the house, including expired sausages, and cook everything with the addition of beans. Feijoada is something similar. It tastes no different, but sounds prettier.
This is a serving for one))) it was enough for three of us
"Caldeirada" - the same thing, only used different fish instead of meat. But there are also complex dishes, for example, regular cod with cream sauce, which takes more than a day to prepare. The locals call cod bakalau. It is generally brought from Norway, but each resident of Portugal on average eats about 16 kg of cod per year.
Everything for tourists is edible, although nothing. But the main thing is not to try the sausages. For 8 - 10 euros you will get a full-fledged G, in comparison with which a sausage for 50 rubles from Pyaterochka will seem like a gastronomic masterpiece. Local sausages are something chewy, tasteless, lightly salted and fall apart as soon as you take it out of the casing.
French fries, onions and tomatoes in all restaurants were fine, quite edible.
The octopus was gorgeous... not rubbery.
The fish is tasty, but for some reason it tastes like boiled cod, no matter what you order. Do you think I'm joking? They have "bacalhau" - salted cod and 365 ways to prepare it, one for each day of the year. According to statistics, each Portuguese eats 16 kilograms of cod per year. But the funny thing is that it is not found in local latitudes; it is brought from Belarus and Norway. And this fish is local. Fish - needle. Tasty and delicious because it is deep-sea and can only be caught at night.
Dish "bacalhau a bras". Jacket potatoes and grilled sardines. Locals cook grilled sardines right on the balconies of their apartments; none of the neighbors will make a comment; they cook it themselves the same way.
“Piri-piri” is spicy))) spicy hellish crap after which it will blaze both in front and behind.
They say that proper Portuguese steak is cooked in port wine sauce, and “kebabs” are marinated in port wine with the addition of garlic.
I guess I was unlucky)) didn’t come across it. In general, I can briefly describe Portuguese cuisine - anything goes well with port wine. Pipple eats, literally and figuratively. It’s better not to visit anything that’s geared towards tourists; it definitely won’t be tasty. We need to look for places for locals.
In Lisbon we tried Caldo verde - a traditional national soup. Green cabbage, potatoes, onions, garlic with olive oil and spicy pork chorizo sausage. However, there was no spicy food among the thick stuff. Just something incomprehensible... but very edible. Ask for the spicy sausage separately! Otherwise the cook will take it home.
Seaweed soup...
Fish soup.
In Porto or Lisbon there are no problems with the choice of restaurants, especially in the central part of the city. Literally on every corner you can find both a small home cafe, where a hearty lunch will cost 6 EUR, and a budget or expensive establishment, with a check from 15 to 100 EUR.
It seemed to me that they didn’t know how to cook pork. They simply cut it thinly and make sole out of it by frying it. I tried pork in several places and it was about the same everywhere - nothing.
We ate this salad in Porto))) it is called “Russian salad”. Those. our Olivier. But there are no pickled cucumbers and sausages, just potatoes, carrots, peas and a little mayonnaise, so little that they are not felt at all. I had to tell them what to add to this salad...
There is alcohol here for every taste and color. The Portuguese themselves prefer to mix dry wine with water. Tourists drink everything else. Lisbon trams are even on bottles))
Porto is, of course, port wine...
About port wine and how it matures below the link.
In general, there are hundreds of restaurants in Portugal: from the most modest places where you can dine for less than 20 EUR, to restaurants with Michelin stars.
There are many inexpensive restaurants in Porto in the Ribeira quarter. All are distinguished by good cuisine and comfort. There are a lot of different delicious breads here. Surprisingly. I have never eaten such delicious bread abroad as in Portugal.
Pastries "Pachelet de Nata" - custard, crispy shell. Below is an unleavened bun with chemical cream. Inedible at all. But if you spend a month at sea, it will go with a bang.
They also have their own Tula gingerbread cookies.
There are many different desserts in Portuguese cuisine. Most sweets are made from egg yolk, to which sugar, coconut, cinnamon, and marzipan are added.
We tried this chilled chocolate dessert in Lisbon and it was very tasty.
In Porto, mid-range restaurants are widely available, usually small, with a cozy and somewhat homely interior. The average bill is 30-50 EUR. Expensive restaurants are usually located on the embankment. They offer a wide selection of food and especially wine. Some of them have up to thousands of names of this drink on their menus. The average bill is 70-80 EUR.
In the evening, just sitting with wine in Porto is a problem. We walked around the center, kicking footballs everywhere, as soon as they found out that we wouldn’t eat, but would just buy wine and beer from them and sit. We have never seen anything like this before, even in pompous Moscow)) as if every table is worth its weight in gold))
Main sources:
In this article I want to share with you real examples, prices and places where you can eat inexpensively in the Algarve. Current prices for food from the trip in May 2017.
Breakfast prices in the Algarve.
To begin with, I would like to say that breakfast is a flexible concept. For some, breakfast is a mug of coffee and a sandwich or cake, but for others it is always hot, plus a sandwich, plus sweets, etc.
In the Algarve you can find breakfast to suit every taste. On average, all cafes open at 9 am and offer a variety of breakfasts. The most popular of them is the so-called English breakfast.
The average price for such a breakfast is 5 Euro. Somewhere more expensive, somewhere cheaper. Breakfast already includes a drink. We had breakfast in Albufeira on the embankment and it cost us 20 Euros for four.
For lovers of a modest breakfast, the most suitable a budget option- This is coffee with Pastel de Nata, the national Portuguese delicacy with custard. The price for Pashtel varies from 75 cents to 1 Euro; a mug of coffee, depending on the type, will cost from 70 cents to 2 Euro.
I would like to note that traditionally the Portuguese drink coffee from very small cups, almost thimble-sized. And if you order Café, they will bring you a small mug of espresso. If you are used to sizes of at least 200-300 ml, then we recommend ordering coffee with milk café com leite or galão - something like a latte.
To place an order at this confectionery, you can choose whatever you like in the window, show it to the seller, and in return you will receive an order number. You will need to give this number to the waiter when you sit down at the table and order coffee.
Dinner. Food prices.
Naturally, food prices are limited only by the size of your wallet. I won’t say that we tried to save a lot on food, but we spent money on food quite reasonably and based on the places where we found ourselves for lunch.
If we talk about a set lunch, prices vary from 5 to 8 euros. It so happened that we mostly had lunch at mall, because we ran away from the sun there. Therefore, my review of lunches is more about cafes in shopping centers.
As a rule, this is a meat steak (chicken, pork, beef to choose from) and a side dish - French fries or rice, plus salad and of course a drink. But the portion size is simply unreal. Therefore, sometimes my mother and I took one lunch for two and added a plate to it, or rather a pot of soup and dessert. The soup cost between 1 and 2 euros.
One day, either lunch or second breakfast found us
in 
time for a trip to Monchique, and we went down to the small town of Caldas de Monchique (not to be confused with Monchique itself).
There is a hotel there with thermal springs, it also houses a very old and famous restaurant. But he works according to his own schedule and again I didn’t get into it. For this occasion, there is a buffet nearby from the same restaurant, where we ordered an assortment of traditional sausages and very tasty bread with sausage! Outwardly it doesn’t look so attractive, but in reality it turned out to be very filling and tasty, so much so that even your favorite pastel de nata turned out to be unnecessary :)
Dinner
In Vilamoura we lived in apartments with a kitchen and often dined at home. We bought a kilogram of shrimp or salmon steak, vegetables, fruits, a bottle of wine and enjoyed fresh and high-quality products. . But we went out to restaurants a couple of times. We chose one of them based on reviews on TripAdviser and were not disappointed. It is located on the highway not far from Vilamoura towards Faro and is called Marufo 1. Opposite is exactly the same, but Marufo 2 and it no longer has the same assortment and there are almost no people. 
We arrived at 20:40 and literally took the last place at a long table, after us there was already a queue at the entrance. We didn’t understand what caused such a stir on an ordinary weekday evening, and the menu was small. But everything became clear when the dishes were brought to us. Fresh fish grilled with wonderful side dishes and wine! And at a ridiculous price too. We paid about 45 Euros for dinner for four with wine. We ordered Dorado, Salmon Steak, half chicken and pork with mussels. The table was also served with bread and olives with butter, although you can refuse this and not pay 1 euro per person.
But not all food prices in Portugal are so low, and I’ll give you an example of another delicious dinner in interesting place. We personally came across two of these Italian restaurants in Albufeira, and there may be some in other towns.
For me, the culture of the place where I go is transmitted, including, and sometimes primarily, through food. And it often happens that the simpler the food, the tastier it is. It’s not for nothing that all the forums for travelers advise going to those cafes where the “natives” go. Sometimes it is not easy to get used to the local cuisine. Indian, Vietnamese, and some even French cooking may not be to their liking or liking. But not trying what everyone around you is eating is also quite difficult. In Portugal, food is quite simple. Even with 2-6 euros a day you won’t go hungry. Don't believe me? And this is true.
So what is the basis of Portuguese cuisine?
Buying food at the market
To understand what you can eat in Portugal, you need to look at the local market. My hotel in Porto was not far from the city market, where I went to buy fruits and vegetables. Look at the counter, of course it's greens! All kinds of salads and cabbage.
We eat octopus and fish in small local cafes
Undoubtedly, Portugal, as a maritime country, cannot do without fish and seafood in its menu. For those who can afford a little more, octopus, squid, oysters and others are available Marine life.
The simplest preparation is simply grilled with salt and lemon. As we read and then saw with our own eyes, the most popular dish in Portugal prepared in this way is sardines. Moreover, in Porto they were much more impressive than their Lisbon relatives (these “fry” below are precisely Lisbon).
A little more complicated - stew with potatoes. For example, they prepare cod, which can be found in every cafe. At the same time, sardines and beans, as you see in the photograph, are an ordinary worker’s lunch in a very ordinary cafe.
Trying smoked meats and meats
Of course the Portuguese eat meat. And smoked meats of all types, shapes and fillings are presented in variety in markets and butcher shops.
The Portuguese love soup and so do we.
The most popular dish among the local population is soup. There are basically two options. Cabbage and vegetable. The latter will also be half cabbage. Depending on the status of the establishment, the type and ingredients of the soup will differ. At the restaurant in Obidos, the cabbage soup was thin, almost just broth, but with a slice of jamon. But in a simple cafe there was so much cabbage in the soup that the spoon did not sink, but instead of jamon there was a piece of smoked sausage.
And this soup costs 1-2 euros. At lunchtime, the counters in all the cafes are filled with workers and clerks, and everyone eats soup and bread. Local bread is very cheap. The simplest bun costs 10 cents. Every time we went into a cafe to drink coffee, we saw local pensioners buying espresso and a bun, which they carefully cut into 2 pieces.
Portuguese coffee
The coffee in Portugal is the best I've ever had. And the cheapest. 70 cents!
And it’s impossible to refuse local baked goods! Yellow as the sun itself that illuminates this country. They put a lot of eggs in the baked goods, and they become incredibly tasty.
Paste is the most important thing, you have to try it
Paste is a traditional Portuguese dessert. And it's very tasty. Puff puff pastry and custard. When they are warm and freshly baked, it is absolutely incomparable. And there is no need to give any addresses, they are really tasty everywhere. Even at Lisbon airport. 
I usually write down the addresses of cafes where I can eat delicious food in advance, mainly from the Lonely Planet guide. The crisis, which has now reached Portugal, has affected many inexpensive establishments, and they have closed. Nevertheless, everywhere we went along the way it was tasty, simple and not very expensive. The main thing is not to be embarrassed by the simplicity of the establishment.
Like most southerners, the Portuguese have a very light breakfast - usually coffee or milk with a sandwich or bun. They have lunch here at approximately 2-3 o'clock in the afternoon, but the main and most satisfying meal is dinner, which starts around 8 o'clock in the evening and consists of several courses (traditionally - appetizer, soup, main course, dessert).
Since Portugal has been a maritime country since ancient times, the cuisine of this country is distinguished by an extremely wide range of fish and seafood dishes. No country in Europe eats more fish than Portugal. Fish here is baked, fried, stewed, boiled, smoked, and dried. The most commonly prepared dish is cod - there is even a saying that the Portuguese have as many cod dishes as there are days in the year. Fish dishes are usually flavored with olive oil and vinegar. The Portuguese love grilled sardines, and canned tuna with potatoes and beans is popular.
Not only fish is popular, but also other seafood - octopus, squid, sepia, shrimp, lobster, lobsters, clams, etc. Traditional dish is caldeirada - a dish of shellfish, fish, potatoes and tomatoes.
But since ancient times, meat and poultry in Portugal were included in the daily diet of only the wealthiest people. Commoners ate cheap fish they caught or bought on the market, while few could afford meat and poultry. The most luxurious dish was considered to be the cozido dish, the preparation of which is very dependent on the budget and imagination of the cook - the dish included pieces of beef, pork, salted lard, sausages, bacon, as well as carrots, rice, and beans.
Another very popular meat dish in the city of Porto is Francesinha, a hot sandwich with bacon, sausage, tomatoes and green beans. In some regions of the country, alcatra is popular - fried beef marinated in red wine and garlic. Portugal is also famous for its wide selection of sausages (encido). A popular modern Portuguese dish is chicken piri-piri - chicken in a pepper sauce.
In addition to fish and meat, vegetables are also widely used in local cuisine - especially tomatoes, cabbage and onions. Asorda is a very popular dish made with garlic, olive oil, eggs and bread. Most meals are served with fresh salads, which usually include tomatoes, lettuce, onions and olive oil. The most common side dishes are potatoes and rice.
Vegetable soups are also popular - for example, caldo verde made from potatoes, onions and cabbage. The country is also home to a variety of cheeses, most of which are made from goat's or sheep's milk and have a very strong flavor. In some regions, however, traditional cheese is made from cow's milk.
