I think it's a magnet for this stuff because it's cheaper than the rest of Europe and the government has openly marketed itself to this kind of thing (to the detriment of the citizens, who are being priced out of housing and a lot of whom are leaving for other countries.)
Dear, your credibility:
Goodbye.
The bread is awesome everywhere.
Now with this said, Portuguese food is medium. There are great cheeses, great starters but then it goes downhill.
Again, I have nothing but live for that country and people living there, the culture and whynot but food is not the first thing (or the 5th) when I think about Portugal.
I’m in Mexico right now having a lot of fun
You can find Italian restaurants all over the world. Where are all the Portugese restaurants if this cuisine is so brilliant?
It can be hard to know what to eat and often more importantly where to eat as a tourist, and in Portugal its often (in my experience) the last obvious establishments that are the best (often places you don't even think sell food).
Doubt there is one (some might say apple pie) and the only thing I can think of that unites all the different American cuisines and regional variations is the sandwich.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/04/14/dining/field-...
Big Mac?
Spain/Portuguese food isn't snobbish or fancy, but it's generally good. As a matter of fact I find that the baseline for what is bad in these places is actually quite high.
That is not the case for your average Italian restaurant around the world. Most of them are not that great.
The best National food after Italian (and maybe Japanese) is Georgian, but you don't see their restaurants worldwide either.
Georgia being a tiny third world country that hardly anybody knows about might have something to do with their lack of cuisine reach.
Portuguese is like the 5th most spoken language in the world. That’s pretty damning.
Obviously it depends what you like, but the seafood and rice dishes were excellent. And there's also Mozambican food with spicy piri-piri sauce... can't get enough of that.
I would recommend to try their fish and seafood, it’s fantastic.
Here it is ladies and gentleman. Portuguese people love bashing Americans. They have a really narrow minded idea of what an American is, and that's that ("Americans are fat", "Americans are stupid").
Portuguese people consider themselves worldly and educated, which is ironic because for the most part they tend to be extremely provincial. I bet you that the average Californian has tried more foods than the average Portuguese person even knows exist. They don't know much food-wise, that's why they think that salted codfish and cabbage is great food, like someone else mentioned.
Source: I was born in Portugal, lived most of my life in Portugal, now moved to the US because Portugal isn't great. Pay is low, services are atrocious, food is hit and miss (but limited in variety), and people are narrow-minded.
This is not limited to Portugal though; this sentiment exists in many countries, especially among people who have never been in America. But yeah, like your anecdotal, I have many anecdotes too; like Americans in Thailand saying the food is disgusting; they only went to 5 star hotels with EU/US type food. In Thailand. And that wasn't the first or the last time in Asia. I like eating in the US, and I like to go there and meet new people. I moved to Portugal a few years ago and everyone Portuguese I meet (generally programmers) would like to live in the US, at least a few years. So not sure, guess depends on many things. I guess, like I always say, if you don't like it somewhere, just pack up and leave; good you did as you don't seem to like it. I will move too in a few years, not sure where, but we'll see.
That’s how I understand your comment.
In that aspect, yes, absolutely. The US provide access to variety of « world cuisine »
I bet it’s harder to find good niranja in Lisbon than Columbus, Ohio.