Mi Dai — Restaurant in Lisbon

Late October, 2023

We were craving something different from Portuguese fare and Chinese/ Asian food is our comfort food. This place serves excellent Cantonese-style dishes.

Though it says “Wenzhou” outside, it’s known as Mi Dai… one goes to the counter and points at various ingredients you’re interested in, and the kitchen does the rest. It’s a bit odd to not have a printed menu with prices, but the total bill for two (4 dishes, 2 bowls rice, 1 large bottle of sparkling water) came out to be a very reasonable 50+ Euro. Note: they only accept cash.

We ordered 4 dishes: stir-fried morning glory, eggplant and pork, pork belly, and jellyfish cold salad, all with 2 bowls of white rice. I was excited to have some leftovers.

Execution was wonderful, the wok-hei coming through. The dishes were all well-balanced and flavorful; there was even a slight spicy kick to the pork belly (somewhat of a hong rou preparation). Jellyfish salad tasted of sesame oil, rice wine vinegar, and garlic delicately blended. Aubergine with pork was perfectly cooked, with the eggplant perfectly tender but with its vibrant purple colour still coming through.

This is a bare-bones place with not a lot of atmosphere, but the service was kind, and the gentleman behind the counter spoke English well enough, and was...

First off, at the time we visited, the red signage just says Restaurante Wenzhou but it is in fact called Mi Dai. The address number 7 was faded so we almost passed it up. But the menu says Mi Dai on it in tiny print. Branding fail, lol.

Food was outstanding. Imagine living in Lisbon for 2 weeks and the food highlight was this place. (Well, for me. For my gf it was actual Portuguese food.)

We have awesome real Chinese food in LA area. But I'd never had Wenzhou cuisine. This place blew my friggin mind.

Fish noodle soup, amazing. Fried rice vermicelli, so amazing we went back again.

Mapo tofu (mápó dòufu, called "tofu picante" on the menu) -- holy shit the málà spice was off the chain with whole Sichuan peppercorns and (I think) bits of zhà cài. Best I've ever had, and I changed my own recipe to match.

This place literally changed my life.

Only one downside. They don't have chicken as a meat option. I just used a cheat day for the pork. Also idk if the fish noodle soup was fish broth. In case that matters to you. Whatever, it was all worth the cheat...

A true gem in Lisbon. The food is very cheap and the portions are enormous. Don't make my mistake and don't order two dishes at once. I consider myself a person that can eat a lot, but the beef soup and the rice with pork were too much for me. The soup was superb, tender meat, a lot of noodles and tasty broth. I went there two times more to try the eggplant with pork and the gyoza dumplings, both were to die for ! If you get tired of portuguese cuisine and want to try an authentic chinese food, in a family owned restaurant, this is the place to go. P.S. payment only by cash, they...