In keeping with the emphasis on home cooking, the dishes are served family-style in traditional Portuguese pottery. And although there is no denying that you are in a restaurant, the low-key decor of exposed brick and bare tabletops also lends a homey feel.
Goncalves makes the breads in-house. The basket includes a dense rustic broa de milho made with both corn meal and corn flour. It is a nice contrast to the lighter white-flour bread made with just a little sourdough starter.
The bread and a small bowl of nuttylike beans come to the table as a little prelude to help you work your way through the menu.
For a starter, the Queijo Fresco, fresh goat's-milk cheese ($9), set the tone for the evening with a fresh, light taste. It is served with a traditional tomato jam as well as a Portuguese olive oil with a sprinkling of Portuguese salt.
Another appetizer, The Rissóis de Camarão ($8) or shrimp turnovers, also added to the taste of home. Fried pastry encased a mixture of shrimp so light, it could have been a mousse - in another country, of course.
The beauty of serving family-style is that everyone at the table gets to sample. Even a diner who eschews the "fishier" fish would enjoy a bite of Sardinhas na Brasa, grilled sardines with roasted pepper salad ($16).
These small, whole fish are oily enough to take well to the grill and the sweet peppers cut the taste of the fat.
If there were a quintessential Portuguese dish it would be the Carne de Porco a Alentenjano, a mix of pork and clams, with crisp potatoes ($24). The combination of pork and clam may seem counterintuitive to our tastes stateside, but the melding of flavors in this dish is amazing, as was the tenderness of the pork.
