Tucking into alfresco chicken and chips

Portuguese fare may not have a leg to stand on next to other cuisines of the world, but if you're adventurous, carnivorous and willing to forsake vitamins and fibre for the duration of your journey, you're in for a real treat.

Compared to other Western European countries, the olive oil-soaked food here is excellent value for money.

Coastal areas serve up a cornocopia of shellfish and delicious fresh fish - try seafood and rice stew, grilled sardines and swordfish or tuna steak. Sooner or later on your travels, you'll find yourself plate to face with bacalhau - dried and salted cod - Portugal's national dish.

Veal, steak, beef and lamb all make regular appearances on restaurant menus, as does the ubiquitous barbecue chicken with chili - a hangover from Portugal's colonial days in Africa.

Dishes also vary by region: in central Portugal the local delicacy is eel stew, sucking pig and marinated pig's feet fried with black pudding and chestnuts, while the folk up north have a fondness for stomach tissue and are teased by southerners for being tripeiros (tripe eaters).

Desperate vegetarians in Portugal will end up quaffing huge amounts of bread and cheese - but oh - what bread and cheese! Bread rolls are fluffy and white on the inside and have a crunchy exterior. Portugal also makes some fine cheeses from goat's and ewe's milk. Oddly, it is hard to find vegetables on most restaurant menus, even as an accompaniment to fish or a slab of meat.

Fresh food markets - of which Portugal is hardly deficient in - are great places to stock up on fruit and vegetables. If all else fails on the cuisine front, you'll be easily won over by the bite-sized custard tarts (pasteis de nata): they are sold absolutely everywhere, but word has it that Lisbon's Belém district is where to sink your sweet tooth into the best in the world.