AND f inally

HANDS UP FOR A GOOD MEAL. ANTHONY MARTIN RECKONS THAT THE CHINESE POPULATION HERE CHOOSES TO EAT AT HOME WHERE THEY ’ LL EAT WELL, RATHER THAN IN THE RESTAURANTS THAT TRY TO BE ALL THINGS TO ALL PEOPLE

THE CHINESE community in Portugal is one of the oldest due to the country’s colonial and trade history with Macau dating back to the 16th century. There are about 30,000 people of Chinese descent residing in Portugal today. Some members of the Chinese community in Mozambique also moved to Portugal when the process of decolonisation began in the 1970s and its independence drew near.

(source: Wikipedia)

So why is it, with 30,000 Chinese people living here, I can’t get a decent Chinese meal in the Algarve? They can’t all be eating Caldo Verde followed by Bacalhau à Brás. And the last ‘Chinese’ restaurant I went to was staffed solely by a group of Nepalese who, despite their charm and good looks, didn't appear to know the difference between dim sum and prawn crackers. Instead of learning to cook, did they spend their time channelling their inner Sherpa Tenzing by guiding tourists wearing layers of woollies across Mount Everest’s South Col?

But, while the Brits hunt out a Sunday lunch of beef with Yorkshire pudding, presumably the Dutch yearn for raw herring with chopped onions, the Germans a nice bowl of Sauerkraut and the French a meaty Cassoulet, what of the Chinese? Where and what do they eat? As I don’t see them in restaurants, perhaps they only eat at home – very sensible if you ask me, why should they have to suffer spring rolls, beef in oyster sauce, sweet and sour pork and all the other staples, slopping about in monosodium-glutamate, that we Brits have been ordering since Chairman Mao was top dog? And I’d lay odds that when they do sit down to eat at home they don’t, like the restaurants here, run out of pancakes and Hoisin sauce when there is plenty of shredded duck left.

Possibly the main reason they don’t suffer it is that they don’t eat it. These dishes we are served have been westernised to suit our gweilo palates. It is often said that countries get the leaders they deserve, well I also believe that restaurants get the clients they deserve, and clients get the restaurants they deserve, and if those restaurants constantly serve crap food, drowned in MSG, they will get crap guests.

Said crap guests eat their meal and, being Brits, however bad it is, don’t complain as the food is identical to the Chinese meal they had the previous month at the ‘Cheeky Geisha’ in Great Puddleton-on-the-Tees. The only difference being that the fried banana didn’t come with a sea view.

But I’m at fault here as much as the next man: I don’t complain. I just make a mental note not to return. Therefore, the restaurant carries on serving inferior food, no one comments, and the cycle continues.

Years ago in the olden days, or should that be golden days of the late 1970s, when my family and I discovered the delights of this thin strip of land on the edge of the Continent, where frozen food was unknown, chips were hand-cut and the few local existing restaurants took pride in producing delicious food for us estrangeiros who, most of the time, had no idea what we were eating but we couldn’t wait to return to sample more.

It was here I was introduced to baby calamari, chocos and lulas. Sardines, while sitting at trestle tables at Portimão harbour, straight off the boat, rolled in salt and onto the barbeque, served with a rough red wine and a chunk of delicious bread. What’s not to love?

Well, that was my take on it, but many of my countrymen took, and still take, a dim view of ‘foreign’ food and look for signs that proclaim ‘English Breakfast – bacon, sausages, egg and beans’, which is, I think, why they are comfortable in Chinese restaurants, as there is one in every UK high street. As for my choices, I now have a problem next February with Chinese New Year, which we always celebrate with a Chinese friend. I could, of course, switch to celebrating Buddha’s birthday – but I don’t like Indian food.