A satisfied smile spreads across my face as I mentally pat ourselves on the back for finding a quaint – “authentic even”, I confirm smugly to my mum – Portuguese restaurant. A restaurant with small brown tables, mismatching wine glasses and brightly coloured ornaments, placed charmingly on slightly wonky shelves.
Guests talk excitedly over big portions of meat and vegetables, pints of Super Bock and glistening glasses of white wine. We’ve found the spot where the locals eat! I think proudly to myself with no real proof that the guests are indeed locals.
I step forward into the archway, in between the terracotta-coloured walls of the restaurant’s exterior, in an attempt to announce my presence. A big cheesy tourist grin signals my excitement and my hunger.
“Do you have a menu in English?” I ask.
This would turn out to be my first mistake.
The waiter’s eyes narrow, his posture hardens and he utters his next words in one rehearsed, irritated exhale.
“No; our menus are in Portuguese only.”
I immediately know there is only one way I can possibly respond to his curt reply. Without consulting my mum, my words, laced with both fear and admiration are, “Do you have a table for two please?”
Displeased and worn out by the site of Two Sweaty Brits Abroad in the doorway of his restaurant, he shakes his head but says, “Yes.”
As he removes a table from a couple’s set up, my mum asks me, “Are you sure we should eat here?” Adding quickly, “We can still make a run for it.”
And the stakes are high. On the first of our two evenings in Lisbon, 24 hours prior, we had been disappointed with our restaurant choice.
On his way to returning to us, the waiter throws down a silver dish with a handwritten bill to an American couple. Overly polite, overly enthusiastic and visibly nervous, one of them exclaims, “We absolutely loved our meal!”
The waiter grunts a response.
As the couple expresses their final thanks to him, clearly bored or done with the interaction, he turns his back on them and is in front of us as their words trail to an unsure finish. Both taken aback by and in awe of his approach, I need to see what this place is about. “Yes, let’s eat here.”
As we pull out our chairs and sit down, the waiter offers no more detail on the wine options beyond, “Red or white?” We barely take a second to think and say, “White please,” gulping back an urge to add, “If that’s okay with you.” There doesn’t seem to be starters and, if there are, we choose not to ask. There are ten or twelve main course options and the waiter prompts, “What would you like? Meat or fish?”
Eager to impress, I say something like, “Whatever you recommend!”
Utterly unimpressed, he responds through gritted teeth, “It really depends on what you like.” Ignoring my genuine request to be recommended to, he simply rattles off the English translations of each meal, without waiting for questions and walks away.
As he leaves, I declare to my mum that we deserve this. Not only had we not bothered to learn his language before getting on the plane to Lisbon, the only thing I can confidently say in Portuguese is, “Pastel de nata please.”
We realise as soon as he is too far away that he spoke so quickly that we haven’t grasped what a single menu item is.
But we are English. We both tried and failed to learn a second language throughout secondary school. We know what we need to do. Despite orders from the teachers not to trust Google Translate, I assume it has vastly improved in the ten or so years since I sat in a classroom, learning the lyrics to ‘Neunundneunzig Luftballons’.
My mum and I scramble to get our phones out, quickly typing in each of the meal’s names into our phones; always getting clarity on what type of meat or fish the course is built around, but only sometimes on how it is cooked and what with.
The waiter is so light and nimble on his feet that we don’t realise he’s back at our table until it’s too late. Clumsily trying to hide our phones and their crude translations, he glances briefly at our hands; so briefly that if I’d have blinked in that moment, I wouldn’t have noticed that he’d seen. But if there’s any doubt, the even thicker layer of disapproval that laces his next words confirms it: “What do you want?”
Not entirely confident I know what I’ve chosen until it arrives, my dinner turns out to be BBQ steak with pineapple, seaweed, rice, black bean sauce and fries, whilst my mum, we find out, has opted for pork with bacon and a similar array of sides. We polish off every single crumb. Sure, had we not liked it, there’s no doubt we’d have done the same in fear of the repercussions but, as it happens, the generous piles of meat and accompanying sides are exactly what we are looking for on our final night.
We shuffle out of the restaurant after settling up, trying to cause as little fuss as possible as we dodge through the close-together tables. “Thank you!” we try one final time but are met with no recognition of our anxious farewell. And, truthfully, we don’t want it any other way.
I turn to my mum. “Best meal of our holiday,” I say, full of glee and Portuguese carbs, already romanticising our experience.
My mum nods in agreement and I ask, “Pastel de nata?”
“Por favor.”