Shhhhhhh

As rambles go, this one doesn’t promise much: walk to Santa Apolónia station, ride the metro two stops, walk down the hill—any walk in Lisbon involves a hill—to the Irish pub to confirm that they’ll be showing Champions League quarter-finals, second leg, the next two nights. They are. I’ll make the trip again tomorrow. For now, let’s tuck into a beer and a plate of fries
We all know the merits of a plate of fries. For a couple of decades there, we hid our fries, fearing public scorn. We had to meet on Wednesdays, late, in that church basement on ______th Ave., with a rented deep frier from a sympathizer but our own oil. You’ve heard of the Friers’ Club? We were jolly around the ketchup bottle by night, but crossing paths by day, we’d look away.
Earlier today I sat down with a couple of guidebooks and the internet to find a fado club. That is, a small place where people meet to sing and play fado, as opposed to a large place dishing up mediocre fado ’n food at inflated prices for tourists. Any place recommended by, say, Trip Advisor or Lonely Planet soon becomes over-run by guidebook readers, with corresponding hike in price and reduction in service, not to mention dilution, if not entire corruption, of fado experience.
Earlier than that, though, on my ramble any which way in Alfama this morning, I came across a fado place not mentioned in the guidebooks--a joint called D____ de A_____. Open Wednesdays, said the sign on the door.