The Man from Mosel River

The red entrance of the country inn Quinta da Lama

Quinta da Lama is not easy to find. If our host of Quinta de Gatão, Mr. Jorge Coelho da Silva, would not have guided us. He drove with his big BMW motorcycle in front of us so that we could find it otherwise we would not have a chance to experience this unique place.

Quinta da Lama is located in Vila Meã, near Peñafiel, the centre of Vinho Verde in northern Portugal.

Outside the main entrance construction is still going on

The restaurant is domiciled in an old olive oil mill and renovations are still ongoing. The millstone is at the centre of the restaurant and very picturesque. Rural equipment including tools from an old distillery can also be found. The interior is simple country style, extremely charming and very appealing. Rural folk all over the world will recognize its authenticity immediately.

The mill stone

One of the three female proprietors is Susana, an energetic young woman who speaks perfect English. The day we visited, she took our orders and served us the food. She made us feel at home. And as at home, we ate splendidly. To say it from the outset: this was quality food; fantastic rural dishes you won’t find elsewhere.

It was our last evening in rural Portugal and we had cause to celebrate. Looking back on a wonderful week in the countryside east of Porto.

The starter platter of Quinta da Lama

As customary in Portugal, a platter of appetizers is put in front of the diners. It consisted of home produced ham, local cheese, a sausage made from chicken and beef, melon and olives, all very delicious. We devoured the home made sausage made from chicken and beef. We drank the house red with the meal, a solid “Landwein” (table wine) as the German say.

The size of the portions is for (very) hungry workers

Our girls ordered a mixed grill type of dish with potatoes. I had a pork dish with chestnuts. As customary in Portugal rice and potatoes are consumed simultaneously. We had various desserts. I show you two of them, a ‘Crême brulée’ and the “secret” of the house, Papa’s D’Anjo.

The pork in chestnut

Crême brulée

Papa’s D’Anjo

Papa’s D’Anjo is a local dessert made of eggs and sugar syrup as far as I can recollect. It is very intense and one needs a lot of stomach space left to leave the plate behind empty. But what a delight this dish is. The fruit flavours are just incredible.

The end of the meal was celebrated with a “digestivo” which was equally a local invention. It’s the “trademark” of Quinta da Lama and is called Xiripiti, consisting of brandy home-distilled, with honey and cinnamon.

There is only one thing I can say, come to rural Portugal and visit Quinta da Lama in Vila Meã near Peñafiel just about an hour east of Porto in the Minho Region.

I will let you know more about rural Portugal soon. There are so many wonderful things we saw and experiences we were able to make. The hospitality of the people is just unbelievable, especially at Quinta da Lama.

Address
Quinta da Lama
Restaurante Tipico
Real
4605-348 Vila Meã
Tel.: 255-733-548

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 27th, 2008 at 12:05 pm and is filed under food and wine. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.