This place grabbed my attention when I saw it listed in a restaurant guide because both eating out in Kensington and Portuguese food were new things to me. Naturally, I recruited the husband and the sister for this adventure.

Angelo’s Portugalia is located right on Anzac Parade, in the midst of a variety of Asian restaurants. The place was packed with diners and customers waiting for their takeaway orders by the hot food displays full of chicken, and the signature bottled sauces.

Bottled sauces

Staff wasn’t particularly warm, or efficient. They seemed to walk around carrying orders without really noticing when customers needed something. My guess is that they’re UNSW students who don’t really like to work there. Anyway, one of them served us complimentary olives, and we were offered bread rolls. The olives were pretty average and the bread… well, of course we didn’t try it!

Complimentary olives

Ordering was not easy, everything in the menu conditioned a salivary reaction in us. We kicked things off with some seafood, an entrée size of Camarao ‘a Portugalia (Portugalia Prawns), pan-fried with garlic, periperi and Portugalia sauce. While the prawns were huge, they were not exceptionally tasty.

Camarao ‘a Portugalia ($16.90 for the entrée size)

Next up came Bife ‘a Portugalia, a prime Angus rump cooked in the traditional style topped with a fried egg and Portugalia sauce, and served with “hand-made” fries. We ordered it medium rare but got it mostly well cooked. Despite of all the bells and whistles, it wasn’t memorable. The chips were bland and soggy.

Bife ‘a Portugalia ($27.9)

But we still had hope (and hunger). Chanfana (slow-roasted lamb) sounded promising: they roast it red wine, onion, and garlic in the traditional Portugal style, and serve it in a terracotta pot with boiled baby potatoes. It was nice but again nothing to write home about. At this stage I was certainly disappointed at my first encounter with Portuguese food but I wanted to think it was just the restaurant.

Chanfana ($28.90)

We were still hungry. We decided to finish our meal with Espetada, 300g of prime Angus beef cubed, seasoned, skewered and grilled over the open charcoal. They serve it with chips or rice, we chose potatoes. Once again we weren’t blown away by the flavour of the dish. I think what I enjoyed the most was trying a Portuguese red, which was actually quite nice.

Espetada ($26.90)

Angelo’s Portugalia
262 Anzac Parade
Kensington NSW 2033
(02) 9662 1711
www.angelosportugalia.com.au