Day four - Nick's birthday

We woke to brilliant sunshine and pressies for my birthday and then breakfast on the terrace - with a glass of champagne, of course and a Portuguese tart too! It was the start of a wonderful day. We took a walk to Cascais and did a little light shopping. Then took in a beer beside the sea, before heading home to coffee and reading in the sunshine. 

Gabs predicted that we were unlikely to get pissed as there were wines to accompany each course. We shall see, I thought.

Meanwhile, mozzarella and tomato and pesto focaccia was to be had, delivered by a young lady who was closely followed by a guy bringing a birthday cake and a bottle of wine. As we had two glasses of rosė on the go already, we parked that for another day.

It was then time for a ziz prior to a night of partying. We slept with the patio doors open - it was so warm. When we awoke, we got ready and then went out to be warmly greeted by Barbara - the events coordinator. She told us she had put us on a good table. We didn’t realise how good. Front and centre, the best seat in the house with an up front view of all the action that was to come.

First however, we ploughed through the first few courses of a nine-course dinner, beginning with an amuse-bouche of foie gras, followed by an oyster - our very first and, for both of us, our very last. We didn’t get it even a little bit - everyone else seemed to be quite happy to slurp the slime down, but we found it borderline unpleasant. Not the chef’s fault, or indeed the oyster’s. We just didn’t care for them at all.

The rest of the meal however, made up for it - the largest king prawns you’ve ever seen, beautiful steak, fish and vegetarian courses and of course a sweet. A curious interlude was the gin and tonic with lime bonbon and mint spheres. Imagine a small but very strong gin, with a round white chocolate on a stick and clear frogspawn in the bottom. Doesn’t sound very appetising, huh? Absolutely gorgeous! The bonbon was an explosion of lime flavour and the frogspawn (no idea what it was) was like a minty gel that complemented the gin very well.

However, we’ve not discussed what interleaved the courses: the dancers and singers. This very professional troupe burst onto the scene at the end of one course with a very lively song and dance number, girls with plumage, boys with glittery trousers and two singers whose voices were just great.

Our seats were right in front of them, in fact to the extent that they could have crashed into us - their high kicks were positively dangerous to our safety! They circulated the restaurant, which was split over three rooms and did their stuff and then disappeared again until the next number. Quite astonishing and delightful.

They closed the event at midnight with a number that ended on the dot of 12am. Thereafter, we had a photo with them - really good of them - and then danced the night away until 2am. Quite late enough for these two tired little teddy bears.