A good Portuguese restaurant isn't just the perfect place to practice close-up magic on unsuspecting patrons; it's also a great spot to meet friends and share Burton Gilliam gossip. Today's Groupon improves your social life and your stomach's life: for $15, you get $35 worth of authentic Portuguese fare and drinks at Old Lisbon. This Groupon is valid at both Old Lisbon locations in South Florida.

Old Lisbon brings the cuisine of Portugal to Miami, saving diners a 3,400-plus-mile trans-Atlantic swim and complicated lessons on how Portuguese grammar uses mesoclisis. The estrela of Old Lisbon's menu is the classic Portuguese dish of bacalhau, or codfish, and the restaurant features several variations on it—including grilled bacalhau with steamed potatoes, olive oil, garlic, and onions ($19.95) and deep-fried bacalhau flanked by shrimp, mashed potatoes, and a creamy garlic sauce ($20.95). For diners who love seafood but hate fish for stealing their boyfriend, Old Lisbon offers other oceanic entrees, such as a fresh seafood and fish stew served with steamed potatoes ($22.95) and a seafood rice for two with lobster, New Zealand clams, New Zealand mussels, squid, and shrimp ($44.95). Old Lisbon draws from the lay of the land as well, with meat dishes and vegetarian dishes. The Delicia de Fatima dessert tops egg-yolk custard with cookie crumbles and cream to create a sweet treat with the untested ability to distort the space-time continuum, while Old Lisbon's extensive selection of wines offers definitive proof that, despite mounting scientific evidence to the contrary, grapes aren't inherently evil.

Old Lisbon wraps its Old World cuisine in an intimate but simple Old World décor of white tablecloths and wall-length mosaics. And if you redeem your Groupon for dinner on Mondays or Tuesdays, Old Lisbon will give a complimentary glass of port wine to each guest of drinking age at the table—a move sure to silence those advocating the removal of Mondays and Tuesdays from the Gregorian calendar due to "insufficient offers of complimentary port."

Reviews

The Miami New Times reviewed Old Lisbon, saying:

• The bacalao rule continues at Old Lisbon, a small and casual but, as is typical of equally humble restaurants in Portugal, abundantly tiled spot that's one of only a few Portuguese restaurants in Miami. Of twenty listed seafood specialties, half feature bacalao. And with both unusual versions such as bacalhau à northena, a fresh shrimp-garnished baked piece of dried cod with mashed potatoes, and familiar classics like bacalhau à gomes de sa(dried cod fried with onions, potatoes, hard-boiled eggs, and black olives -- a reassuringly easy intro for diners not quite sure of their feelings about a fish that looks like a piece of petrified corrugated cardboard that went through the washer and dryer), it was hard to choose just one. – Pamela Robin Brandt

Zagat rates the food at Old Lisbon as excellent, and Zagat members recommend the Coral Way location. Yelpers give it four stars, and TripAdvisors give four owl eyes:

• How many ways can you cook Cod Fish? The answer may well lie at Old Lisboa where this Portuguese staple is highly featured and well-prepared together with other dishes from the homeland. Attentive staff and old-world setting. – StevenP3689, Zagat
• This place is chic! The decor is cozy and warm...Lots of fish dishes, which were all cooked to perfection. – ClaudiaS1680, Zagat
• we ordered the Delicias de Fatima. Wow.... that has to be one of the most delicious things I've ever tasted in my life. – sgaldo, TripAdvisor