Skip to main content

Lisbon: Day 2

What an amazing day for food - at our host's recommendation, we headed to Pois Café for breakfast. It was a much-needed healthy meal for both of us, and in a very comfortable, laidback environment. 

From there, we explored the area around Praça do Comércio. We found a stall selling chestnuts that were roasted to perfection. The blackened chestnuts were cracked so that all you had to do was loosen one half, then the whole chestnut would pop out easily. 

We kept on walking towards Mercado Da Ribeira and explored the market. There, we discovered Time Out Market - an unparalleled collection of mini restaurants serving up glorious food of all varieties... a foodie paradise! I wanted to try so many things but we had just eaten, so I was related to choosing one thing to try: a local specialty of codfish with scrambled eggs and sliced potatoes. We also got a couple of natas (Portuguese custard tarts) to go. 

With full bellies, we decided to head for some wine tasting at the Instituto dos Vinhos do Douro e do Porto. Set in a mansion, this place offers an insanely wide selection of ports to sample. We tried 3 and it was actually possible to distinguish between newer ports and aged ones, as well as single harvest versus blends. 

Dinner was fantastic - at Solar 31, we got to try Portuguese lobster. It was gigantic, and cooked just right. When they brought it out, it was too large for our plates! We were stuffed as we walked out of the restaurant. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Happy Chinese New Year

I spent this past weekend in Toronto, sinfully stuffing my face full of Malaysian food in celebration of the new year. The image above shows a 2006 Australian Year of the Dog coin, commemorating the event quite fittingly - since the gift of money has its own part in the New Year's traditions. Now, although I may have eaten more than my share of glorious food, I also helped in the preparations of the feast! It was weird, baking with an electric mixer after having no such technology in Waterloo - I actually took a minute to stare in amazement while it was mixing the batter. Sad, I know. On Saturday night, I went to a friend's house for New Year's Eve and then later, to First Markham Place. Apparently, there was a countdown to midnight - which I'd never heard of before... and then realized why no one did it. As we counted down (in Chinese) - "sup... gou... bat... chut... lok... mmmm..." - and hit 5, a bunch of us burst out laughing. I can't really descr...
Post a Comment
Read more

Machu Picchu to Cusco

We survived. Our day started slow with breakfast and then killing time until our train departed at 1:30pm. That's what we thought would happen.  In reality, a landslide along our train route stopped all trains. Luckily, this happened before we were scheduled to depart, so we definitely dodged disaster. We ended up waiting only 2 hours to board a train out of Aguas Calientes, but this delay was only the first of many, which was not unexpected, since no one was prepared for the landslide.  Instead of our train taking an hour to reach Ollantaytambo, it took almost 2 hours, most likely because they were only able to clear one track along the route. Then, since we had to transfer to a bus in Ollantaytambo, and there was a backlog of passengers needing transportation, we got stuck in line/traffic. It took us almost an hour to get out of Ollantaytambo, with the streets completely jammed. We finally arrived in Cusco around 8:30pm, three hours later than the originally scheduled time. ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Reflections on Peru

Before I get too in the weeds, I think it's worth noting that after at least a decade of traveling to developed countries, Peru was bound to be a very different trip. It was our first time traveling to South America. It was the first time I was traveling with my in-laws. Also first time traveling to high altitude locations. Lots of firsts! The first thing we noticed was the transportation - we travelled on a South American airline (LATAM) for the first time, and found it to be a good experience. They automatically checked us into the flight 48 hours prior - I can only assume this is because they don't overbook their flights. On international flights, they provided blankets, pillows, and a light meal to all passengers (which is no longer part of the base fare for North American airlines). Of course, we did have that unfortunate experience on the flight back (also with LATAM) where one of us got food poisoning - so they don't get a perfect score. The great experience also doe...
Post a Comment
Read more