Out to Lunch Izakaya

Porto has been spoiling us when it comes to Japanese food. Since we moved here, new good spots have been opening up. Out to Lunch Izakaya is one of the best of them. We have been there a couple of times before, and while visiting the Essência Festival on a Saturday, we decided to go again. We were not disappointed.

Out to Lunch currently has a permanent pop-up location at Época café’s location, between Jardins Cristal and Cordoaria. We were surprised to be reminded that they have been there for two years now. The memory of their start there is still fresh for us, I remember how excited we were for it. It's run by a couple: One side is the Japanese chef who runs the kitchen, the other Portuguese, running the service.

Since we had our fair share of alcohol at Essência, we started with their excellent non-alcoholic drinks, sparkling yuzu and sparkling ginger. We’ve grown a new fondness for sours when we visited Japan, and they make them excellently here.

We ordered a few things to eat, starting with the Wakame salad, a couple of onigiris and pickled celery. I love the salad dressing here, it has just the right amount of acidity. Onigiris are something else that we’ve grown to appreciate more while in Japan. While there and working late nights, 7Eleven onigiris became one of my favorite foods to keep in the fridge and snack on at 3AM. Out to Lunch had a version with asparagus and corn for us, one with salmon, one without, both very good. Finally, the pickled celery was so nice! Neither of us are fans of celery, we will endure eating them here and there because they are healthy. This pickled version, however, I wouldn’t mind eating often.

Next up was the agedashi tofu, which we had before. It was as good as we remembered. The texture of the tofu is just right, and the dashi sauce / broth is just perfect. Before we ordered, we had a whole back and forth between us and the owners whether to go for the karaage tofu or this one, and they ended up choosing for us. I’m sure we will have difficulty deciding next time as well.

The final plate was the miso glazed, deep-fried eggplant. As much as we liked all the dishes, this was my favorite. The miso glazing complements the flavor of eggplant perfectly. It was perfectly fried, softened to a creamy texture so you can just spoon it up. We had a similar dish here before, but I think this was the first time they served it like this, half of a whole eggplant, with a bit of roasted sesame and chives on top.

We weren’t planning on having desert, but the sesame on the eggplant changed my mind, so we ordered a sesame ice cream to share. It’s vegan, and for a vegan ice cream, it has no right to be this good.

On our way out, we had a chance to chat with one of the owners for a bit. We learned that they will soon move to their own spot in Rua da Restauração. We were very happy for them. In our three times eating there, we were never served a bad dish, and their service is always excellent too. I hope they focus on lunches and lunch menus in their new location, so we can try more of their amazing cooking.

You can find them on Instagram here. Reservations are recommended.