It was April 2006. I’d been in Portugal for a week with good friend and fellow MS, Keith Goldston. We were guests of AMORIM, Portugal’s largest cork producer, and had toured cork factories, seen cork forests, and sat through seminars on all things cork with emphasis on TCA-related issues. The week also afforded many great meals including numerous opportunities to taste black pig, the most delicious pork in the known universe. But now it was the afternoon on the last day, and we were sitting on the beach in Porto watching the huge golden sun set over the Atlantic while sipping ice-cold Sagres beers and eating the freshest, briniest oysters I’ve ever tasted. Life was grand.
It was precisely at that moment that Maria Rosita, our guide for the week, suddenly rushed up, saying she had managed to get tickets to the first-ever winemaker dinner held in Porto. Further, the meal would be prepared by one of Portugal’s hottest chefs and would take place at the modern art museum. She was simply giddy at the prospect like she had scored back stage passes to a Stones concert.
Maria was understandably shocked when we barely registered any response at all. “So let me get this straight,” I said, “you want us to leave this gorgeous beach, the sunset, the cold beer, and the oysters to go to a winemaker dinner? Seriously?” Maria was visibly crestfallen, even hurt. After all, she had been our cheerleader, our biggest fan, and our insane-crazy-ass driver for the entire week. Needless to say, the guilt of it all quickly sunk in and we caved in seconds. We would go to the dinner, forsaking the Hallmark moment of sunset on the beach, cold beer, and freshly-shucked oysters.
Less than half an hour later found us at the entrance of the stark white exterior of the museum. We were quickly ushered to the room designated for the night’s gala event. Once inside, it took just moments to realize that the venue may have worked for a museum, but it was a complete disaster as a space for any kind of formal dinner. The ceilings in the “dining room” were barely twelve feet high. That itself wasn’t a problem except for the fact that everyone—except us—smoked. Heavily. Constantly. Smoking, if unfamiliar, is one of Portugal’s national sports along with football. To top it all off, and to complete the psycho-killer vibe to the room, there weren’t any windows. What followed can only be described as a descent into the darkest reaches of culinary hell. But as the wise Inigo Montoya once said “It’s too long to explain. Let me sum up.”
To begin, the cast for the evening’s performance:
The crowd: dozens of Porto’s top foodies all fashionably attired were there in force eagerly waiting the night’s repast as they smoked cigarette after cigarette non-stop.
The winemaker: from a small estate in the Douro Valley that produced both Port and dry wines from Port varieties. He resembled a short, beardless Santa Claus and was perpetually smiling as if someone had dialed up his medication for the evening. He only spoke Portuguese which to my ear has always sounded like Russian pirates trying to speak Spanish.
The winemaker’s son: would be joining us at our table which meant that Keith and I actually had to behave and pay attention. The son had gone to school in New York and was fluent in English. He was a timid sort but clearly excited about the evening because it was a grand opportunity to show off his family’s winery and wines. After all, it was also Porto’s first winemaker dinner and how bad could that be? The gods were just about to show us.
The chef: Soon after arriving, Maria arranged for Keith and me to meet the chef. Moments later, he appeared from the kitchen attired in impeccably clean and starched whites with his assistant trailing behind. Said assistant was a short, mousy woman who looked as if she’d experienced one too many explosions at close proximity. We would soon learn why. The Chef shook our hands vigorously and in perfect English regaled us with tales of his recent opening of a new multi-million dollar restaurant in Montecarlo. He then went on to provide thoughts on the menu for the night’s extravaganza.
About ninety seconds into the conversation I noticed the chef’s left eye begin to twitch. Odd, I thought, but no big deal. But as he went on describing the menu and how he would, and I quote, “flaunt convention,” things got strange. His speech became increasingly punctuated with loud staccato words accompanied by jerking gestures. Several minutes in, the chef was shouting and literally spitting words out as he finished describing the dessert course. Keith and I looked on more than a bit concerned. We weren’t quite sure what had just happened. But in watching him, and then looking at his tiny cowering assistant, everything suddenly became crystal clear. The thought of this guy in a hot busy-ass kitchen working with knives also became an unsettling picture.
Punctually, at eight o’clock, the proceedings began with an elegantly dressed socialite, cigarette in hand, welcoming the group and introducing the evenings’ important personalities. First, the winemaker stepped up. Over the course of the next ten or so minutes, he told the story of the family winery, all the while mewling in sotto voce Portuguese. Every few minutes Keith or I turned to his son and asked “what did he just say?” The response was something like “he said the winery is really old,” or “the hills are very steep.” Finally, the winemaker showed both wisdom and perspication by sitting down. Next up came the chef with his assistant. Any doubts about the earlier script being repeated were quickly resolved, as the chef sputtered his way through the description of the first course. The crowd, bless them all, listened with rapt attention and smoked recklessly on as if nothing was out of the ordinary.
As the first course hit the table, I remembered the chef’s phrase “flaunt convention.” It was a soup course. In this case, a cream of almond soup with a texture not unlike Malt-O-Meal. But the crowning touch was a raw egg yolk floating in the center of the bowl, looking for all the world like an enormous evil yellow eye. Memories of the old black and white Twilight Zone commercials with the huge blinking eye quickly came to mind. Regardless, all around me diners with spoons in hand pierced the evil yellow eye and tucked into the almond soup which was remarkably salty and a stark contrast to the slimy texture of the egg yolk. To top it all off, the soup was paired with an oxidized over-oaked Douro white wine that reminded me of an unfinished bedroom set that had seen better days. I will leave you to imagine the combination of gloppy soup, slimy egg yolk, and oaky over-the-hill white. It was anything but conventional.
With each successive course the bizarre tableau repeated itself. The foodies chain-smoked as if it were their last day on earth, with the smoke getting so thick you could, as they say, cut it with a chef’s knife. Initially, the winemaker would stand up and quietly mewl away for 5-10 minutes about the next wine. At some point, he would mercifully stop talking to the smoky applause of the diners. Then the chef would reappear from the kitchen to describe the next course with his tiny assistant hiding behind him. As before, he would start speaking to the group with authority and conviction, but within minutes start to melt down. After sputtering and barking to the end of his presentation, the audience would politely applaud through the haze. To say it was all surreal is an understatement.
Between courses, Keith and I would stagger outside through a side door gasping for fresh air. Any and all urges to grab the nearest cab back to the hotel were quickly thwarted by the appearance of Maria, who was concerned about our sudden absence. We complained vociferously about the cigarette smoke but there was really nothing to be done. To her credit, Maria tried to get the people around us to give the smoking a rest several times, but it only worked momentarily.
The high point—the pièce de résistance—of the entire evening was surely the entrée. It consisted of a large piece of cod, a staple of the Portuguese diet, which had been pan-seared and supposedly finished in the oven. Beneath the cod was a puree of roasted pearl onions and on the side a lettuce leaf–empanada-looking affair filled with soggy mashed potatoes. As I went to cut into the cod for the initial bite, I quickly realized that it was all but raw. In fact, it had the same texture as a piece of flesh just carved from the bone of some newly-dead animal.
Accompanying the chunk of cod, onion puree, and mashed potato empanada was the Brettiest, most tannic Douro red wine I’ve ever tasted. Imagine the essence of stables and barnyard combined with a texture similar to licking the floor of a machine shop. The Brett in my glass was so extreme that it made my eyes water. At that point, I looked across the table at Keith. He was equally stunned. We put our dining utensils down in unison and picked up a glass of one of the other wines and quickly slammed the remaining contents. Meanwhile, all around us Porto’s top foodies noisily wolfed down the raw cod and potato empanada with alarming relish and aplomb.
The end the meal was kind of/partially/sort of saved by a delicious flourless chocolate cake prepared not by the chef but a local bakery. It was paired with the winemaker’s vintage Port, which had a smoky edge either due to the wine’s age or the tainted air in our lungs.
In the end, we emerged from the hazy den of gastronomic disaster after more than three hours, practically begging for another beer. Once back at the hotel bar, we did our best to tell Maria that it was OK; that we would be just fine.
But after the second beer, even she had to admit, “Wow, that really sucked.”
And she was right.
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