The best part: there are no classes.  This of course meant that I flew off to Portugal with 13 of my nearest and dearest directly after my Tuesday seminar finished.  Yep, it was awesome.  I’ll put up some pictures on my other site eventually (there was scratch on my filter, so I have to go in and edit the stupid dot on all my pictures), but in the meantime, let’s discuss the food.  Or rather, let’s just look at it.

Night 1: Sea-bass

The whole fish was super-fresh and delicious.  I was proud of myself that I successfully de-boned the fish and didn’t manage to choke on any bones!  The salad dressing was also really good (no idea what it was) and didn’t saturate the lettuce.

Night 2: Sol

Yes, that is raw meat. Yes, that is a hot stone. You put one on the other and eat. And yes, I ate it all.

Night 3: Fado

We went big. We went expensive.  We went Fado.  Fado is the traditional music in Portugal and we wanted to experience it first-hand.  The entire group went to a nice restaurant where we got traditional dishes and were swooned by singers.  It was filling, long and wonderful.  I got octopus.  It was yummy.  It was huge.  I didn’t finish this one.  I didn’t even try.

Night 4a: Argentinian!

We had steak. and sausage. and pork. and pork belly. and thank god I’m not a vegetarian because this was amazing.  One of my good friends is half-Argentinian, so he picked the best stuff for us.  I thought I would never eat again, I was wrong.

Night 4b: OH MY GOD WHY DIDN’T ANYONE TELL ME PORTUGAL HAS RIDICULOUSLY GOOD HAMBURGERS?

I always find it amusing that I never ate off of food carts in NY, but adore them in Europe and even in China (which retrospectively probably wasn’t the smartest idea).  I just feel the quality is much improved.  The food carts in the states is getting much better though and I love the Clover Food Truck at MIT.

Anyway, the burger I will dream about for the rest of my life:

• A delicious bun
• Perfectly cooked patty
• Mustard, Ketchup AND mayo
• Lettuce
• Mushrooms
• Crispy fried onions
• Corn
• Carrots

Some of my friends polished off three (3!).  Another friend doesn’t eat red meat and devoured hers.  I think this will go down in hamburger-history.

PS – I apologize for the quality of these pictures.  I didn’t take my SLR out to dinner with me, so I was using a point-and-shoot.