Lisbon: Eating Our Way Through It.

I've got one giant folder with over a hundred shots so I'll divide the Lisbon posts up by certain categories. Starting with the food. And we did eat our way through it, BUT we were doing something like 20,000 steps a day, which makes eating all the more special. Guilt free.

First, an overview:  After the Urban Sketchers Symposium, Fred and I trained down to Lisbon for another five or six days. It's a belated celebration of our 25th wedding anniversary, which we celebrated on the day back in October, but didn't know yet if we'd be coming to Portugal. So it was a good excuse to extend this travel period so Fred could have a bit of non-working time. AKA "vacation."

Our pattern here has been a long walk together in the morning until around 3. And by morning, I mean 11:00 am. We both like our coffee/tea/paper/puzzles in the morning. Then we separate—Fred to draw and me to work if there is something for me to do, and edit my photos, and have lunch. Fred grabs something to go. I, however, sit in a little family restaurant and chill. Lunch out is something I never ever do at home. It's odd I've taken to doing it here.

A few of our nights here we ate in very brightly lit family-owned (as in the wife cooks and the husbands serves, or vice-versa) type places. Here we sat next to Jean-Michel De Monicault --t he mayor of Croisy-sur-Eure, a little town in Normandy.  He and his wife Catherine said they would like us to visit and stay in their castle! It's a B&B. It's the only way they were able to keep it in the family. Photo below, credit to Booking.com

The Mayor. 

There's this great little sour cherry liqueur called Ginjinha that's sold in tiny plastic shot glasses all around the city for one euro. At the bottom are a pile of little tiny cherries with pits --- they look more like olives than cherries.  Just remembered -- it is also served often in a little chocolate cup!  More info about Ginjinha on this site: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ginjinha

Fred ordered the fish and chips, basically---something we saw at someone else's table -- but the waiter said they were all out, but there were two other kinds of fried fish. Fred, not knowing one from the other said, You pick!  (Words never spoken by Fred Lynch ever before--- or ever again, for that matter!)  This is what he got. Three little fish biting their tails. I said, Can you do this? He did and liked it!

Mine was more along the lines of what I expected.

I'd say let's leave the chocolate mousse for the French to handle. This was not very chocolately, and just kind of odd.

This is the outside of the place we ate all that. It's very typical of hundreds of spots to eat.

One night we had just a cheese board for dinner and later found this same cheese at an outdoor market. It's soft in the middle, like brie, but has a firm rind (that is edible) and it's wrapped in a white cotton cloth. Really good!

Olives at the outdoor market. They were selling them for one euro a cup -- and the cup was a plastic beer cup with the logo for Super Bock, their Budweiser. 

Crazy-looking tomatoes.

HUGE macarons! 

This restaurant served our meals in little steel pots. This was seafood pasta. I was a little deflated at the elbow macaroni, which is silly because pasta is pasta, no matter the shape, but it was too good to be disappointed for long. I'm all mixed up now about what we ate where because of how similar the little family places are. We had the pots with the mayor and the crazy fish at the place I showed the photo of the outside of.

Portuguese donuts. I asked a woman in a department store what they're called and she thinks they are bolas de berlim.
By the way, this language is way complicated. The word for yes is "sim," but it's pronounced "sing." I THINK. The M is NG... lots of Bs and Ms in this language. Ok -- that was just my own interpretation of what I hear myself. Just did a little research and some describe the M as like the N at the end of a French word.. sort of not said...  At least it's something that is talked about and not just in my imagination.  There are also a lot of ZSA ZSA sounds.
https://www.duolingo.com/comment/9915052/Pronunciation-of-M-in-Portuguse 

Delicious watermelon snack. 

This is the national pastry. Called a pasteis de nata. As I said on my FB/Instagram post -- I usually don't take my empty calories in any form other than chocolate or ice cream (sweets-wise, anyway), but had to try this. It's eggy custard in a very flaky crust. I get it, but nothing special to me.

Gelado. Every bit as good as gelato.

One night we decided to eat somewhere with better lighting. So I looked up most romantic Lisbon restaurants on TripAdvisor and came up with this. It didn't disappoint. I walked to it to make the reservation. Had a nice interaction with the server. When we arrived, he looked at me as if he had never seen me before. Asked if we'd like a table in our out -- there was only ONE left outside and that was where I had reserved to sit!  So unnerving. What's more, there was a little scrap of paper with the name Desiree on it, and the number 2! Fred and I slipped it under the placemat and settled in to OUR table.

This appetizer was warm, melty Portuguese cheese with honey and bread to dip in it. Excellent.

It was our belated 25th anniversary dinner. We didn't know if we were coming to Portugal last October when we celebrated in Portland, ME. A tad different!

We might have these in the states ---- machines to make orange juice. I used one a couple of times in the super market where the basket of oranges at the top is huge, and you have to feed more in once in a while, and push an orange along once in a while if it gets stuck. A nice British young man walking that Camino de Santiago pilgrimage helped me toss more oranges in once. It was a bit high for me. The orange juice is, naturally, amazing.  I just looked up that pilgrimage and it does not go through Portugal, so.. whatever.



I will close this post with a bunch more shots of awesome things to eat. Or not!