Unlike the deserted beach and boardwalk of Nazaré, the recommended restaurant is packed, as if all the tourists who happened to be in town decided this is the restaurant to be in today. Maybe the shoe store owners sent them here; maybe it’s the only restaurant that remains open during the off-season. Maybe it’s the restaurant that received the most stars on Trip Advisor. I can’t tell.
We have to squeeze ourselves by a row of tables to reach the only empty table standing at the very end of the long and narrow dining area. Apart from the four chairs that surround this lonely table, every seat in the house is taken by a person who looks distinctly foreign, just like me and my travel mates. The amount of food that I see on the plates leaves me somewhat worried about the expectations that the waiters might entertain regarding our eating capacity. Large plates of fish, shellfish, and crab, with sides of antipasto or French fries, plates of green salad and bread, bottles of white wine, and glasses filled to the brim cover each tabletop. In short, patrons are having huge meals at this restaurant. Nothing I was planning to be confronted with when I decided to take the risk and enter this place with the hope of ending my nerve-racking search for a bathroom. I also have a nagging feeling that the unsmiling waiter who leads us to the only unoccupied table is going to be unpleasantly surprised when he gets our orders and realizes that my troupe is not the type that splurges on wine and expensive seafood platters for lunch.
The waiter puts four large menus on the table and pulls out the chair closest to him for Vera, I assume since she is the eldest among us. Vera ignores his gesture and maneuvers her body between the table and the window into a chair at the corner, from where she can observe the entire restaurant. She is not one to sit with her back to the action. I noticed that she did the same at the Fado bar. I think it’s an ingrained Israeli habit to choose a strategic spot from which she can see what’s going on at the restaurant in case a suspicious person walks in. You kind of want to be prepared to leave quickly before the suspect starts shooting or activates his suicide vest.
Rita pulls out a chair opposite her mother and sits near the wall with her back to the restaurant. Anna just stands there, waiting for the waiter to walk away so she can sit near Rita. I make no movement toward the chair next to Vera and ask him about the bathroom. He motions to follow him back to the entrance and there, he points to a narrow, spiral staircase, explaining that I will find the bathroom at the top of the stairs.
Luckily, I am a small person. I don’t think anyone above six feet or over 300 pounds would fit in this staircase, or inside the bathroom. Because there is no window in this tiny nook, I have to feel my way in the dark to find the light switch. But I can’t complain. I get to use the bathroom for free, and there is soap and toilet paper under the sink. I am also glad to see that the flushing mechanism is not too complicated to operate. More than once I have found myself in a new country, trying to figure out how to flush a toilet. On a ferry in Denmark, I once stood inside a sparklingly clean toilet for several minutes, searching for the flushing handle or string or pedal until my eyes landed on a smartly designed button that was discretely embedded in the wall above the toilet bowl. There was no indication that pressing that button into the wall would activate a waterfall, but I bravely took the chance and pushed it. I still remember the relief I felt that I was able to figure it out on my own. I didn’t know what they do in Denmark to people who don’t flush the toilet before they get out of the bathroom and I didn’t intend to find out.
With a similar sense of relief and triumph, I descend the treacherous staircase and cross the entire dining room to reach my table. For a moment, I feel exposed and judged by the affluent-looking diners. It might be paranoia or projection exacerbated by my childhood experience of walking into the kibbutz dining hall where everyone knew everyone and gossip was the main pastime. Or, it might be a common reaction some women have when they walk into a crowded room. I don’t know. Unfortunately, I can’t control it. I can only be conscious of my discomfort and not let it stop me.
When I join the women at the table, Vera tells me that they already ordered their food. I check the menu and decide to order a salad and a plate of French fries. I am not hungry enough to order one of those enormous seafood plates and I don’t want to be antisocial and not order anything. Plus, I am not open to spending 50 euros on fish and wine just because that’s what the other tourists are doing.
The waiter comes to get my order and drops off a bread basket and small plates with cheese, olives, and chilled butter. He barely looks at me when I give him my order. I can tell that he is not happy. I worked as a waitress long enough in popular restaurants in New York and San Francisco to know how waiters feel about customers who occupy a prime spot during the lunch rush and order an appetizer and a glass of water. But I am not going to be intimidated, even though I know what he thinks about people like me. I’ll give him a nice tip to compensate for the lousy sale.
As soon as the waiter leaves, Rita reaches for the cheese plate and delicately picks one cheese square with two fingers, leaving her pinky upright. She slowly moves her hand toward her face and puts the cheese square in her mouth. I almost fall out of my chair looking at her. I’ve never noticed her being so dainty with food.
“Do you know they charge us for these things?” I ask the group. I read somewhere that in Portugal they charge for starters and if diners don’t want to pay for them, they have to ask the waiter to take them back, which is unsanitary and awkward, but every culture has its little perks and idiosyncrasies, and I shouldn’t be judgmental. I believe that this unusual arrangement catches most tourists by surprise. I think most people assume these are freebies. In Israel, in some restaurants, waiters put a pile of warm pitas, pickles, olives, chunks of white onion, and hot peppers on the table as soon as you order your food, and they never charge you for them separately, so you don’t feel that you pay for them. But in Portugal it’s different.
“Yeah, yeah,” Rita says even though I am certain she doesn’t know that. She points to the breadbasket. “Want one?” she asks, picking a piece of bread and handing it to Vera.
“Not yet,” Vera demurs.
“Come on Mom, try the cheese. It’s yummy,” Rita insists, picking another cheese square. She brings it slowly to her mouth and chews slowly, contemplating the flavor. “Ta’im,” she reports to us and reaches for a green olive with her heavily bejeweled fingers.
Anna stirs out of her trance-like silence, takes an olive, and pops it into her mouth. “I prefer black olives,” she says.
“Me too,” Rita says with her mouth full. “I used to make olives when I lived in…” She begins telling a story she told me during one of our walks about her life on a goat farm but is interrupted by the waiter. He places a small bowl of green soup in front of Vera and another in front of Anna. A large plate with a generous piece of grilled salmon, a boiled potato, and a pile of steamed vegetables is placed in front of Rita.
She did it again. She ordered the grilled salmon. Every time I go to a restaurant with Rita—and Freddy, I have to confess, because she has asked me a few times to join them for dinner to enliven the conversation and spare her from being alone with him—she orders the salmon. But this time the plate seems a bit out of place. A bit too big and full of food compared to the small bowls of soup in front of her mother and her financially strained friend. Maybe they ordered something else, although I doubt Anna, the vegetarian, can afford more than a side dish. Maybe Rita ordered something for them just like she kind of agreed to pay for the starters no one wants to eat. I have to wait and see.
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