Porto, Cricket Tour: The Third and Final Part
Hello Port, Goodbye Porto
Looking from the Duoro river and up the steep hills of Porto, the thin white faces and orange rooves of terraced houses cover the horizon as far as the eye can see. The picture is only interrupted by a metallic bridge, a curiously modern cable car, and several large imposing white signs advertising the city’s port distilleries - Taylor’s, Graham’s, Cockburns - looking like big Hollywood signs celebrating Portugal’s oldest ally and the British families that settled there.
In the far right of the picture above, you can just about see the rotunda of the Serra do Pilar, the monastery Wellington used as his headquarters when he launched a surprise attack against Marshal Soult across the river, routing the French and retaking the city in 1809, setting the scene for the rest of the Peninsular Wars. Porto remained a key supply line for British troops, trade and correspondence for the rest of the war, and in mid-July of this year, Taylor’s distillery supplied an equally eager expeditionary force with a three-course tasting menu.
The amuse bouche of bread and butter soon arrived, or at least the bread did - the butter was hidden in a small white ramekin and satisfyingly round lid which you had to grip and lift like an arcade game. Instead of soft, proper salted butter, however, a disappointingly small dollop of mousse-like dairy product was plopped in the middle. It felt anti-climatic, but I did appreciate the herby taste to liven up the bread and I did enjoy the style of presentation, foreshadowing the high standards to come.
The starter was genuinely incredible. Warm, meaty, fresh salmon in a light and fruity sauce is how I’d put it, but the menu description better reveals the efforts to which the kitchen went in creating a genuinely sensational starter. It reads like the title of a medieval monarch, and had all the trappings of one: “Artisan smoked from “Hardy Smoked Masterpieces”, Granny Smith, sago pearls in cucumber & fennel, roasted celeriac puree, Crunchy Kimchi, lemon verbena emulsion”.
The main of beef loin was equally well presented - laughably so. The almond foam mimicked the look of mash potato, and instead of classic greens there sat two delicate baby carrots, slices of thin lotus root, and a plop of fresh mint jus intricately arranged in a frozen dance on the side of the plate. What’s more, they genuinely tasted good - fresh ingredients, well made - and I enjoyed the range of flavours and textures crammed into one plate. Disappointingly, however, the beef was tough and wasn’t properly seasoned, falling short of the high standard set by the rest of the plate and the overall effort gone into presentation.
Not to worry though, a glass of Taylor’s dry white port accompanied our salmon and I had just begun cruising through the two glasses of white wine that our resident sommelier had pushed in front us. After making progress through the meal, Taylor’s late bottle vintage port 2019 came to rescue the beef loin and Taylor’s 10 year old tawny port joined us for pudding - a rich caramel crème brûlée with a gratifyingly refreshing raspberry sorbet.
The descent from ice-cold white port into deeper, richer reds and tawnies was a story in and of itself, and I wish I could do it justice in describing it one month on. When I think back even further, to port & policy at university, I remember with great fondness the sustained supply of port, filling and refilling our glasses to the brim. I remember the President trying to rally people into discussing fruity policy discussion points, I remember the fruity policy points, but what I never appreciated was the sheer variety of port available outside the bottom shelf of Tesco Express.
One abiding food/wine experience that I will forever be grateful to Porto for is opening my eyes to white port, and for teaching me how to properly drink and enjoy a red or tawny. A life lesson well taught.
The Fish Restaurant
A yearly tradition, we joined another cricketing team on tour, at the same time as us, for dinner at a fish restaurant’s top-floor private dining room. Food came quick and it came strong, moving steadily across the white linen tablecloths to feed the five thousand. First up, the Cajun prawns, and they were beautiful - they looked good, they tasted good, and there were plenty to go around. Fresh seafood, made with butter, garlic, lemon and Cajun seasoning - really, really delightful. The whole green peppers did feel out of place but they balanced out the strength of the prawns. What didn’t complement the prawns, the peppers, the evening, or life itself, were the rolls of fat in brown water that, instead of the bin, were for some reason given to the guests.
A real failure of civilisation - I thought this at the time and, having reflected on the food-memory in writing this review, I haven’t changed my opinion.
Flabby, chewy, tasteless. Forget pork crackling, cast out of your mind the image of juicy beef fat on a steak, or goose fat crisping up your home-cooked roast potatoes - these rubbery fat rolls were absolutely hideous and utterly unrelated to any type of fat gone before. I remember it with a shiver.
Thankfully the rest of the meal was far better - not bowl me over better - but better in a hearty way. Big silver dishes of large white fish were brought out and displayed at one end of the room and served. It was soft, salty and fresh. The raspberry cheesecake to follow was stodgy but proud. The dinner was completed by a steady flow of wine but much improved by the hotly contested conversation on American presidential politics, the intensive discussion of winners and losers of the Second World War, and of speeches of varying quality and relatability.
I smile when I think of it. It was everything you’d want from a sporting tour. And for someone born with the tastes of a forty-year old, now well-steeped in the inclinations of someone in their mid-sixties, there’s not much better than long days of cricket in the sun, even longer lunches and dinners, and all made longer still by good wine and by good cheer. It is finally to the place of Porto, it’s history and traditions, to which I am grateful, grateful for being the consummate host, and to whom I look to visit again and again in all its glory.