In anticipation for our food and wine tour today, we had a small breakfast and skipped lunch. The tour was at 3pm, so we felt that it would probably do us for dinner as well.
We met our charming guide Carolina , in the shady Largo Luís de Camões square and headed off to discover Portuguese delights. It seems Anthony Bordain ate his way around Lisbon as well, as we seemed to follow some of his eating gems again. Our first port of call was a tiny cafe with a massive line called O Trevo, where we stopped for a classic Portuguese snack called Bifana. It is thinly sliced marinated pork on a super fresh roll and the tradition is to add super hot chilli oil (yes I will try to pick some up!) and mustard. It’s a combo I would have never made, but was super tasty, and you could have easily eaten more! Whilst at O Trevor we also tried the local cod cake, which is not something we would have ordered!
We continued to trundle down tiny back alleys before entering another tiny cafe, that was packed with locals, including a wedding party of “a certain age”…. Casa da Índia, named for the Portuguese colony, rather than the food type, was a tight fit and again a series of dishes we would have never ordered. The first was a type of chicken and pork sausage (that would make great hangover food), that had a particular process it had to go through to be served. See photo series below:
The next was a battered, fried and lightly salted sardine, which was delightful. We have eaten loads of grilled sardines, but have both caulked at getting anything battered and fried. These were surprisingly good! Whilst here we shad a local “green” wine. Named green for the grape type rather than the colour (which I was a bit sad about!).
We then headed off to try the local liquor delicacy, Ginjinha, made by infusing ginja berries (sour cherry) in alcohol (usually a brandy) and adding sugar together with other ingredients, with cloves and/or cinnamon sticks being the most common. Ginjinha is served in a shot form with a piece of the fruit in the bottom of the cup.
Again this was sold from a tiny old shop that we wouldn’t have looked much at (not that we would normally be chasing shots at 4pm either!). All of these little shops are in danger of being lost as their building are being sold and “redeveloped”, which is a great shame.
To end the tour we had the traditional Pastel de Nata and tried some other local egg based sweets as well. You can tell sweets are not my thing!
We ended the tour at the city gates, and literally rolled ourselves home….. stuffed very full!
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