Food, food and more food in Lisbon

My last blog about our trip to Lisbon, Portugal.   All about food, which was always freshly cooked and delicious.  And compared to our recent trip to the south of France, reasonably priced too.

We had our favourite cafe, on the Yellow Bus square.   We sat on the quiet side of the cafe, as it was also cool.   The other side, looking out onto another square, was always busy.   I think the outlook might have been better too.   Trees, rather than Yellow Buses and Tuk Tuks.

Walter drank his non alcoholic beer, which was available at all restaurants we went to, altogether three different brands available.   A very happy man.

I sometimes ordered a non alcoholic beer too, but mostly I enjoyed a glass of red wine, much fruitier than I was used to, but very pleasant all the same.  

Cold, sparkling and delicious non alcoholic beer.

And the sparkling water was pretty good too.

On the first night we ordered freshly grilled sardines, with vegetables.   Very good.

Pastries everywhere, which we consumed willingly of course.   The breadrolls were also very good, filled mostly with sliced meat and cheese.   No butter, but the rolls were not dry.    I think the quality of the bread and filling meant that butter was not needed.

But our favourite were the pastries filled with custard.    The Pasteis de nata.   So delicious.   We ate them for breakfast, with our morning coffee and at other times, when we passed a bakery.    It was possible to buy them in boxes in order to take home.    See the photograph above.

On the second day we avoided the restaurants on the main pedestrianised street, in Biaxa.   A man handing out leaflets for a restaurant around the corner, convinced us that his restaurant was the best.   Hunger made us follow him, and he was correct.   It was an excellent family run restaurant.   The view was uninspiring, as the window looked out onto the back of shops opposite, plus cars parked on the side of the street.

Walter ordered a pork dish, which he said was very good.   I was brave and ordered a dish, which consisted of white fish plus shell fish, mostly mussels, cooked in a freshly made tomato sauce.   It was so good.    We were very pleased with our choice of restaurant, away from the busy thoroughfare.

Now the following dish challenged us somewhat, or at least the look of it did.    We went to a restaurant close to our hotel, which was very popular with people who lived in the area.  It was very busy   The receptionist at the hotel recommended the restaurant and the fish dish.

So we ordered the grilled octopus, which came out on a bed of oil, plus vegetables.   It seemed to be half an octopus.  We really had to take a deep breath, and after draining off all the oil, we started to cut it up.   It was very tender, and beautifully cooked.    Very tasty.

I did feel sorry for the poor octopus though.

The last lunch venue found us at the Time Out Market, which seemed on first entering, to be a very upmarket shopping centre food hall.   However we could see that most of the food on offer, was of a high quality and very reasonably priced too.  

We drank our excellent coffee there and ate our desserts, ice cream for Walter and a pastry for me.

An array of smoked hams.

As it was very noisy in the market, we decided to eat at one of the outside cafes.  A tapis type restaurant.    We ordered three dishes to share, plus a glass of wine, for me, and a sparkling water, for Walter ,which came to 40 Euros.    The wine was excellent as was the food, and it was peaceful, except for the waiter, who was not overworked, and kept cleaning our plates away as soon as we ate the last piece of food.    

I think there was smoked ham on the piece of white fish in the photograph below.

Food, glorious, food.    We loved it.