Saturday, June 13, 2009

Date Night

Last night, my husband and I left the kids with some friends and headed out for a date. We drove to the city across the island, which is a very old and historic city. There is a lot to see there. We parked the car and set off on foot. One of the things I've been meaning to blog about is all of the old, crumbling, abandoned houses here. There was a huge earthquake in the early 80's on this island, destroying many of the houses and sending some Azoreans to live elsewhere (like in Canada and the US). Many of these old houses are still here, untouched for the last 20-some years. Portuguese law says that these old, historic houses must not be torn down. They are everywhere- in fact, there is one we can see from our house. Many of them have trees growing out of the windows and pigeons roosting in them. We saw a particularly interesting one last night. It was an old apartment complex with at least 3 different dwellings.





We headed to the city gardens for a nice walk through the trees and flowers.




After that, we headed back to a restaurant we had passed earlier. It was down a tiny side street and it looked nice inside. We read the menu posted on the door and decided to try it. I got the swordfish, and my husband decided to "try something new" and got "baby goatling". My swordfish was a little too fishy, and his goat was gamey. But the potatoes served with both dishes were good. I love the small, yellow, waxy potatoes local to this area. I've tried swordfish a few times since I moved here, trying to get some as good as the stuff I used to eat in Spain, but so far it hasn't really lived up to my expectations. And needless to say, my husband trying goat was a one-time deal! Nevertheless, the food made for some cool photos. **This post and photos are property of http://dishingwithdish.blogspot.com/ **

5 comments:

Shelby said...

I think it is great you two take time out for each other this way! What a great date!

Sonya said...

Wow I really like the photos you took and the garden is beautiful. My husband "tried" something new a few years back. Here in the netherlands they serve exotic meat once a year at a special resturant and he tried ostrich and kangaroo..one of them smelled something fierce and tasted awful.

The only new thing I have tried is escargot. The texture reminded me of those rubbery bouncy balls you can buy in a gumball machine! LOL

What a Dish! said...

Wow, ostrich and kangaroo! Crazy! I haven't tried escargot yet... thinking of the texture scares me!

Linda said...

LOL on the escargot comment--I thought the very same thing when I tried it--back in the 1960s ;)

I love the photos of those old buildings. Glad you have so many neat places to "get away".

The Winwards said...

The food did look really good. I would have never guessed it was goat.