Matosinhos is a fishing town located just 5 minutes away from the city of Porto. This is the best place to get fresh seafood and today, Matosinhos has developed into a must-go place for traditional as well as chic modern Portuguese seafood cuisine.

Os Lusiadas is a traditional Portuguese seafood restaurant. It has a great selection of live or fresh fish and shell fish. For this review, the restaurant served a seafood platter consisting prawns, crab flake paste in the shell, and barnacles. The prawns were fresh, and the crab paste went very well with the bread, but we are most intrigued by the barnacles.

The barnacles do not look really appealing or appetizing as these tiny “creatures” are dirty grey and black in colour (even when fully cooked in olive oil), with a pointed tip looking like something out of an alien movie. Barnacles are actually a shell “fish” that grows on rocks in the sea and they thrive with strong waves. And what strong waves Matosinhos has! With some demonstration from our guide Ricardo, we learnt to handle this “alien” creature by holding the soft black base and twisting the shelled tip, and…out comes the flesh. The tiny flesh is a little bit like crabmeat, but quite springy and tasty, and the olive oil just adds to the flavour. We were soon hooked on the barnacles, especially over some beer.

For the main course, the restaurant served a baked seabass in salt and flambe right in front of us. The thick, white flesh of the seabass was juicy, but could have been better if there were some sauce to go with.

For a MICE group of not more than 50 people, this is a great place for traditional Portuguese seafood. For more information, please visit: www.restaurantelusiadas.com