Behind an Unmarked Door: Exploring Lisbon's illegal Chinese Restaurants

The unmarked door in the alleyway gave no indication of the feast that lay beyond.

We knocked twice, and curious eyes sized us up before the door creaked open.

Tonight we were visiting one of Lisbon's 'Chinês clandestinos', the illegal, non-regulated Chinese restaurants, which opened some twenty years ago during a wave of immigration from China.

In a city that at the time was notoriously unwelcoming to immigrants, these underground eateries were sanctuaries, and some exist to this day in the narrow back alleys inside the multi-cultural Mouraria neighborhood

Often on an upper floor and with no outer signs at all - just  perhaps a red Chinese lantern swinging high up on the wall

The staircase was steep, grungy, and strewn with graffiti, but stepping inside on the first floor, we were immersed in delicious scents of Szechuan spices.

We were led past the narrow kitchen, dodging woks ablaze with oil and a cook yelling Chinese orders.

In the back room,  the waitress hurried past, her arms laden with steaming plates, and every table was filled with hungry patrons greedily devouring their meals.

We sat down and surveyed the tattered, curled-up menu, our mouths watering.

When Rita wants to test the quality of a Chinese restaurant, she often orders the Peking duck, while I was attracted to a meal which - in a kind of pidgin translation from Chinese - read something like 'Happy family on a hot iron'.

We glanced around at our fellow diners - some surfer dudes bent low over their plates, a couple of them burning reefers in between their dishes

When Rita later sopped up the last droplets of duck sauce, and I took leave with my 'happy family', we sighed contentedly - and not just because of the delightful food.

Eating in this 'Chinês clandestinos', actually gave us a bit of the same thrill as when we -  in our New York City days -  were allowed into secret warehouse parties: The joy of finding a place that most people never find, of  feeling a little bit punky!

A few years ago there were perhaps 200 hidden Chinese restaurants in the neighborhood of Mouraria. Today there remains only a handful, and we enjoyed having experienced this culture before it is all gone.

Nothing stays clandestine forever!