Adega is a Michelin Starred Portugese influenced restaurant with a classical design with a bar and seating right at the front, and one private dining area behind a glass paneled wall. My family and friends were lucky enough to be capable of snagging a spot in this elegant spot, since I believe that there is only a singular dining room in the entire restaurant. Instead of a la carte, we wanted to dine with a three course tasting. Firstly, we started with a bread course featuring three different breads: a piece of white, rye, and Portugese cornbread were presented to us with butter, olive oil, and tomato hummus.
Next were the appetizers. Santa Barbara Uni was prepared with White Sturgeon Caviar and potato emulsion. This course had a special spot in my heart because of the creaminess in the dish, from the sweet uni to the salty caviar. Also, there was duck made in two ways, a grilled crispy barbecue duck as well as a duck confit wrapped in a carrot slice and vegetable puree. The crispy duck sang with flavors of the sauce, and the wrap of duck served as a juicy and tender bite that almost slid down your throat.
Next were the main courses, but not all of them wowed me, even though they were cooked perfectly. Firstly, we had a fried fish with a creamy rice, with the crispy fish as a perfect accompanyment to the rice. This dish was execellent and probably my favorite main course. Then, halibut with three sauces and a poured clam broth was prepared. Although the clams and the sauces were good, the fish was overly salty and buttery, resulting in a slightly greasy dish. After that, we had a extremely tender slice of veal with cranberry barbecue sauce and kale chickpea mashed potatoes. The veal was tender, juicy, and extremely flavorful, and the sauce was liked by most of us, except me, because I couldn’t handle sweet barbecue sauce. I do not understand why. The potato and chickpea was extremely delicious, and actually suprised me because of the creaminess and crunchyness.
(Unfortunately, we could not find an image for the fish and rice.)
Finally we had our desserts, but my family believed that Adega did not give us enough food, and we were only full because of the sheer amount of deserts they gave us. For instance, we had a rhubarb sorbet with a lemon custard underneath and topped with a cinnamon cookie (from this angle it looks like some sort of animal head lol). It was really good with the rhubarb sweetness balancing out the sourness of the lemon. Another desert includes a white chocolate brownie and mint ice cream.
Again, I apologize for the image because none of them looked even remotely good for both the brownie and the mint ice cream.
Lastly, and finally, we counted four desserts, and the last one had included four treats, a apple tart, madeliene, donut sphere, and a lemon roll. And all of those were paired with a shot of Portugese cherry wine. Overall, the meal was quite wholesome and filling and I absolutely thought that the appetizer should be bigger since I could eat a whole bowl of that tender duck.
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