Portuguese cuisine specialty on Sunday

Last Sunday, George contacted the willing and able members of his extended family in Harare, and reserved a table for 20 to lunch at the Portuguese Club, aka APH, in Greendale. This historic club is housed in an art deco building in Cleveland Road, just beyond Msasa. The building’s foundation stone was laid on a date commemorated in Roman numerals and intelligible only to Latin scholars, by Sir Roy Welensky. Anyone born before 1970 will probably recall that Sir Roy was Prime Minister of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyas-aland. The Federation existed between 1953 and 1963, a decade in the country’s history of interest mainly to scholars and historians, and virtually lost in the mists of time.
The Portuguese Club grew from strength to strength, providing a venue for Sunday afternoon soccer matches and dances, as well as lengthy Sunday lunches. A group of diasporans on Portuguese Facebook reminisce about New Year’s Eve parties at APH, attended by so many revellers that it took an hour to greet everyone at midnight and to wish them good luck.
We arrived at the club at 12:30 sharp, in time to sit at the bar and drink a pre-lunch gin and tonic. At the entrance to the spacious dining room, the lunch menu was chalked up on a large blackboard.We ordered chicken livers, spicy cubed beef and sliced chorizo as starters.
These were served with fresh sliced Portuguese bread and chilli sauce, which kept us going while family members arrived and gradually filled up one long table. We each ordered a main course, chosen from specialities such as piri piri chicken, roast beef, prawns, garoupa and bacalhau (salt cod). Most starters cost US$3, and main courses ranged from US$5 for bream fillets, to US$8 for charcoal grilled piri piri chicken, and US$20 for cod.
I received my grilled chicken in good time, and found it tasty, if a little overcooked. The French fries were freshly made and crisp. George’s grilled calamari was a long time coming, so he staved off his hunger pangs by sharing my chicken. Those who ordered grilled hake and garoupa (grouper) found it delicious, but an order of grilled prawns smelled suspect and had to be returned to the kitchen. Half of our party had to wait at least an extra half hour for their grilled chicken to arrive, and sat miserably, munching bread and sipping wine while they waited. And waited.
The club serves a variety of wines, including Graca (white wine), Mateus Rose and a selection from the popular South African Robertson winery.
Pink ice cream for dessert (US$1) delighted the under-fives, while the rest of us ordered crème caramel, a Portuguese speciality (US$2).
Portuguese cuisine is familiar in many African countries. Home to a nation of explorers and seafarers, Portugal was the first European colonial power to establish itself, in the late 15th Century, on the African continent. When the Portuguese left in 1974 they were among the last to depart, but left behind a legacy of Portuguese techniques of roasting, marinating and grilling, blended with the local African cuisine. It is the red-hot chilli pepper known as Bird’s Eye, or African Red Devil, which gives the Mozambique style grilled chicken at the Portuguese Club its distinctive flavour.
The Portuguese Club is a popular venue, but seemed unable last Sunday to cope with the orders of our 20-strong party. It remains to be seen how we will fare when we move on to sample the Sunday buffets at numerous other clubs in and around Harare.
The Portuguese Club
Cleveland Road
Greendale
Tel.: 492010
Cell: 0912 468 123
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