Our conclusion? Cooking tasty, tender octopus is way easier than we excpected. We suspect you'll feel the same when you cook the popular Portuguese octopus dish, Polvo à Lagareiro, at home.

Another unusual aspect of the blanket octopus: It’s immune to the stinging cells of the highly dangerous (to humans at least) jellyfish, the Portuguese man-of-war, which it uses to its advantage ...

If you want to experience an authentic Portuguese seaside village ... Santa Luzia is known as Portugal's "Capital do Polvo," or "Octopus Capital," due to this seafood being the local specialty.