Never having been to Portugal before, I was happy when we were able to choose Vilamoura as the location of a major work conference.  Going places that you’ve not been to before makes business travel a pleasure rather than a chore…  And when you have twilight harbour views like this one…

This particular trip was a busy one where work things occupied most of the waking hours, however given Vilamoura is a tourist location, it’s jammed with decent restaurants particularly around the harbour area.  I certainly plan to come back here on holiday some time soon given the amount of things to do and eat…

Tonight, I was initially unsure whether to break the golden rule and not order the brûlée when on the menu.  On reflection, I felt this could have been the beginning of the end, so followed the ‘rules’ and placed my order.  Thankfully, initial impressions were good.   Shallow dish, freshly cut strawberries and an intricate sugar lattice finishing touch.  I almost burned my figures on dish edge when moving it to photograph, so was concerned the custard would be overly hot rather than room temperature…  Not so!  The caramelisation was firm but not too thick for a , but looked to have bubbled under the heat of melting and caramelised a little.  In the end, nicely crisp without excessive thickness but a little sweet. Custard was vanilla pod flecked and smooth, although again, a little sweet. In the end, could be considered to be slightly heavy overall but that have had something to so with the big plate of Linguigne alla Rosso that went before. Not the best ever, but many high points, especially the presentation touches.  7/10.