Ramiro – Overrated Seafood Restaurant

Finally, I am on to my Portugal trip from Sept 2019, slowly catching up on the chapters before I completely forget the amusing details.

This was the bachelorette trip for my best friend from University, along with 3 other close friends of hers that I have not met before, but somehow we all got along like we had known each other for a long time. I had so much fun with them, it was amazing?.

Enough with the blah blah blah, Ramiro was our first big meal in Lisbon. It had a very high rating and it was a solely seafood restaurant. You have to eat seafood when you are in Portugal!

The store had an insane line outside. You put your party down and get a ticket from the front desk. We sat outside in the shaded waiting area for close to 2 hours. Needless to say, we were ready to feast when we finally got a table. Our waiter was friendly yet hasty, he brought us the menu but didn’t really give us enough time to look through it. He did recommend a few things and help us with the order.

There were 3 floors, we were seated on the ground level. The food came to the table instantly. I guess for a crazy busy restaurant like theirs, it made sense to serve food quickly to speed up the turnover of customers.

I loved the clams. The ingredients seemed so simple but the aromatic cilantro, garlic, butter worked so well together. I could devour a whole loaf of bread soaked with the sauce.

The crab was cold, seemed like it was boiled beforehand. The orange roe and tomalley was mixed into a paste and served in the crab shell. Aside from it being quite salty, it was very umami! They had pre-broken the crab for easier maneuver and also provided hammers for more smashing.

The oysters were ok, nothing extraordinary, compared to the ones in Canada.

These were giant prawns. They were covered in coarse salt and slightly rubbery.

The scarlet shrimps were large, that’s my hand there for size reference.

I found all the dishes were excessively-seasoned with salt, except the clams, that was my favourite. The shrimps and prawns were slightly overcooked for my taste. The dishes looked prettier than they tasted, probably because they were prepared in advance and reheated when you order. Our bill was 291.36 euros in the end for the four of us?, with shrimp and prawn being the high-cost items.

Verdict: I would not come back. Pricey, instagrammable plates that were not justified by their tastes. Felt like a tourist trap.

Ramiro
Av. Alm. Reis 1, 1150-038 Lisbon, Portugal

Clams – 11.62 euros
2 Crabs – 64.87 euros
4 Oysters – 7.79 euros
4 Giant prawns – 90.74 euros
4 Scarlet shrimps – 109.82 euros
1 plate of bread – 2.76 euros
2 beer – 3.76 euros

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