Description: The Tropical Bistro was recommended to us by a local. The food is Portuguese/Continental with a home style touch, and the ambience is fun and friendly. The room is open and airy, seating about 40. While you wait for your table you can enjoy a glass of wine in the bar upstairs, and you will definitely have to wait if you didn't make a reservation. The place was hopping busy and we were there only on a Tuesday.
Everyone at our table had the espetada, which is flame broiled skewers of meat/fish/vegetables. The 2-feet long skewers were suspended vertically at the table from an iron rack, and butter with a piece of aluminum foil was wrapped around the uppermost piece of meat so that it trickled down over the whole brochette.
The portion was huge. The guys looked at finishing their meals as a personal challenge. I barely made it halfway up the skewer, and I'm a big eater.
Four of us had the house (casa) espetada; which was steak, prawns wrapped in bacon, and green peppers and onions. The lone non-red meat eater picked the seafood espetada and wasn't sorry - huge chunks of tuna with prawns (they were huge! the size of small Chilean lobsters) and veg. We were asked how we wanted our meat cooked (we chose from rare to medium well) but everything came medium. It didn't matter because it was tasty, tasty, tasty.
The meal came with chips (fries), baby potatoes (every Jersey meal comes with baby potatoes), rice, mixed vegetables, salad, and some funky kind of cornbread. It was way too much food and probably could have fed a small village in Africa for a day. If I went again I would share with someone else and then have room for an appetizer or dessert.
We were tempted to have dessert and almost fell prey to the hostess' high pressure tactics, but we just had no room.
With two bottles of wine between the five of us, and no appetizers or dessert, the bill came to about £120 (service included) or about £22 ($36USD) each.
Definitely worth the visit!
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