8 days in Portugal-5-11 to 5/18/2022

Day 5- Lunch at Rocha Palha, Armacão de Pêra-5/15/2022

Hoa's colleague recommended Rocha Palha, a local Portuguese restaurant located directly on the beach in Armacão de Pêna.  

Armacão de Pêna used to be a small fishing village but in the 60s tourists started to come and the area was developed into a beach holiday resort area.

Hoa's colleague told him that when he was a young boy, the owner of Rocha Palha used to had a stand in front of the beach and he would serve his customers whatever he caught for the day.  The restaurant has been around for over 30 years and now it is a really nice restaurant with great view of the Pacific Ocean.

We parked our car close by and we are now on the main promenade leading to the beach. 

The restaurant is a difficult to find as it is tucked away from the main street.  You have to go through a small alley to reach the restaurant.

Once you are on the square, you will need to go down a staircase to get to the beach.

Staircase leading to the beach.

Here is the restaurant right in front of the beach.  They also have lounging chairs on the beach.

We are now entering the restaurant.

The restaurant was pretty empty so we got a great table over looking the Pacific Ocean.

Nice view of the beach from the restaurant.

Cheers!

View of the front of the restaurant from our table.

View of the bar and kitchen from our table.

Our waiter told us to go and take a look at the fresh seafood they have today.

Freshly caught today.

The menu

Hoa selected grilled Sardines and I ordered the Seafood and Monkfish Cataplana

Cataplana was delicious and reasonably priced- 19.80 Euros.

They know what they are doing, the broth was tasty, seafood were fresh and simply delicious.

Grilled sardines, simple but full of flavors- 14 Euros.

You can definitely tell these are fresh Sardines and it was grilled to perfection.

The Sardines came with a bowl of fresh salad.

What a lovely lunch.  I can get used to eating like this every day.

Enjoying our meal.

The service here is really friendly and we had a good time talking to our server.  Coffee to end our meal.

After the meal, we went outside in this area just below the restaurant to relax and for Hoa to take a quick nap.

This is so great after a great lunch.  This is free of charge to sit here if you eat at the restaurant, If not people will need to buy drinks to sit here.

Very relaxing..

View of the restaurant from the beach.

Pacific Ocean.

View of a town in the distance.

NEXT.... Day 5-Old Town/Beach, Albufeira