My search for this wonderful food oasis started and grew more feverish by the minute. I could not wait to be seated at a table and to order… how would you say rice and black beans in Portuguese? How about ground beef “picadillo”? My, My… they were sure to have pictures on the menu there… I went into circles and noticed that this restaurant, along with several others, was on Neptune Avenue.
My hunger was getting stronger and I had visions of dancing with “La Negra Tomasa” (this was the name of the restaurant –hence the caricature like figure) while listening to a cha-cha or a rumba, all the time sipping a rum and coke… By now it was getting to be past 3pm and my stomach was following me some three meters behind, dragging on the asphalt and making noises of complaint and dissent.
“Where can this Neptune Avenue be?” I asked myself, as my turns into several little corners failed to produce the wanted sight. Suddenly, I had a revelation: “Oh My God!!” “Neptune, the God of the Sea” – “You fool (said loudly to myself) “where can Neptune Avenue be, if not on the water’s edge?”
With this new insight, I made to the river’s edge like a dog after a favorite bone. And then, there it was! Neptune Avenue was nothing but a walkway on pontoons, each restaurant having a little entryway, like a small bridge into nirvana. “There she is!” I almost shouted. For sure enough, there, at the end of the walkway, was the biggest of all the entry bridges, leading right into the arms of that beautiful big, black, cigar chomping lady. With her promises of tropical nectars and tropical flavors to be had. I almost ran the rest of the way and coming to the door, I pulled to open this promised paradise… and the doors did not open; I pulled harder this time, bordering on the desperation that only an unrequited love affair… or desperate hunger can bring about. Nothing. Then, my eyes became focused on the center of the door I was trying to pull off its hinges, where a small white paper note simply said: “We will reopen at 9:00 for dinner”.
OH NO!!! “Where are you Tomasa?” I cried silently, “Where are your promised dishes and drinks?” “Where are the rice, the black beans, the picadillo and bananas?” My mouth went dry and my stomach dropped to the floor, this time with an almost audible PLOP!. I kept looking around, hoping to find someone I could bribe and perhaps get a little taste of what might have been… All I found was a copy of the menu, pasted to the other door. Yes, there was rice, there were beans and beef to be had. Yuca, bananas and all… then I looked at the price list and it was my heart that skipped a few beats!!! There was no way I could have enjoyed their fruits, even if the doors had been wide open. At those prices I would choke with every bite!!
“I know” I reasoned, as my head began to slowly clear. “This is an international fair and this restaurant must belong to the Cuban government… This is just a way to get more funds for their propaganda” then, in a sad and forced conclusion: “I’m glad it was already closed”. You could argue it was just another version of the fox and the “green/sour” grapes routine. And... what could I say when you’d be absolutely right?
I walked back to the center of the park, on a pathway bordering the river. There were schools of nice looking fish which followed me, swimming right next to the walkway, probably used to being fed by the people who usually walked here... Little did these fish know I was frying them slowly in my mind, tasting their cooked meat on a bed of rice, showered with lemon juice.
I eventually ended up having a late lunch at that internationally renowned double arches restaurant (local version) where, at least, I could have a Spanish ham sandwich, French fries and a beer. All this while listening to an often off-key Portuguese “gaucho”, singing about Argentina and its beautiful pampas.
I know, it didn’t make any sense to me either.
Anyway, a postcard from a late summer Saturday in Lisbon.
Be Well!
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