restaurants, restaurants - Tavira

Takeaway Review – O Tacho, Tavira

When we lived in London, we could have pretty much any food we could imagine delivered to our door in under an hour. There wasn’t any certainty it would be any good, but it was an option. I would estimate we had at least 50 places which delivered to our door – Chinese, Indian, Italian, Turkish. Coming to think of it, by driving a couple of miles we could also have something approximating Portuguese if we went to Nandos!

You certainly don’t have that choice here in Portugal – we only have 1 Chinese and 2 Indian places that do takeaway here in Tavira. None of them deliver.

What we do have now though, is the wonderful thing that is the “Pronto a Comer” (ready-to-eat.) Here in Portugal they have takeaways serving fantastic local food, with a menu that changes daily.

Dinner from O Tacho

Dinner from O Tacho

O Tacho is a very popular Pronto a Comer, which often has big queues at the weekend. It is open most days for lunch and dinner and has a changing list of specials as well as items available every day, a chiller of salads and desserts and a selection of drinks and cakes. It is amazing really, that with all the takeaway options we had back in England, no one thought to come up with this concept.

The food on offer is good, plentiful and cheap. Typically (for Portugal) excellent grilled chicken, served with rice and chips (half a chicken is under four euros,) bacalhau a bras (salt cod with potatoes, onions and scrambled eggs,) and grilled fish are just some of the things available daily. There are also turkey escalopes in a cream sauce with mushrooms, which we particularly like. When ordering from the specials menu, we have had everything from stuffed quail (delicious,) to a ribs and bean stew (tasted delicious, smelled…..unusual!) and chicken cooked in beer.

Good local food, a daily changing menu, published online for your convenience, generous portions, and ludicrously inexpensive, I am happy to swap this for the fifty menus I had in my kitchen in London!

O Tacho have a website at www.otacho.com