Aussie uncovers door to secret Chinese restaurant
An Aussie content creator has lifted the lid on Portugal’s highly secretive underground Chinese restaurant scene.
Sydney rapper and former criminal Anthony Lees, better known as Spanian, documented the moment he discovered an alleged “illegal” restaurant in the capital city of Lisbon.
In a viral YouTube video, Spanian revealed how Chinese restaurants - known by locals as Chinês clandestinos (Clandestine Chinese) - were run out of local apartments across the city.
“They will rent a house in a block of apartments, [there’s] no sign, nothing, and you got to know the address and you will go up … knock, and go through and it’s a restaurant,” he explained in the video.
During his hunt, Spanian tracked down a “suss” green door with a white frame not far from the tourist city’s business district.
Nestled between a barber shop and mobile phone repair store, the unsuspecting door was simply marked with the number ‘59’, with no other identifiable features pointing to the restaurant inside.
After walking through the door, the video showed Spanian walking up a long dimly lit staircase surrounded by white walls sprawled in colourful graffiti.
“How is this the entrance to a restaurant?” Spanian said in the video, before suggesting “they’re really emphasising the illegality of this palace aren’t they?”
After reaching the top of the staircase, Spanian knocked on one of two unmarked graffiti doors before he was welcomed into the restaurant.
Boasting 4.2 stars on Google Reviews, the restaurant appeared to consist of multiple rooms covered in graffiti and decked out with rows of tables.
As the only patron in the restaurant, Spanian was quickly shown to his seat and presented a laminated menu by the server.
“I would never had dreamt that it looked like this,” he said.
The social media star described the food – a “greasy” chow mein and spicy chicken dish – as “lovely” and “hectic”.
“That’s beautiful bro,” he said, before paying in cash and leaving the restaurant to hunt for another secret premises.
Others online also noted how “tasty and affordable” the food is, despite one being “very sceptical at first”.
“The place is very underground but interesting,” one person wrote on Google reviews.
“It truly feels like an authentic Chinese restaurant,” said another.
Secret Chinese restaurants are believed to have been operating in the city since the 1990s, following a wave of Chinese immigration.
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However, the food safety authority, the ASAE later ordered a number of restaurants to shut up shop in 2006 following reports food poisoning and unsanitary conditions.
According to euronews, almost 90 per cent of the restaurants were found to not comply with food safety standards.
The publication reports the closures promoted the remaining restaurants to seek permits and improve working conditions, with the “grand majority” of secret Chinese restaurants “totally legitimate today”.
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