Pasuca (Fão, Portugal)
Our second day of hiking was a relatively short hike from Apúlia up to Esposende. Instead of taking the direct route, we packed a lunch and took a major detour through the Parque Natural do Litoral Norte, a large park on a peninsula west of Esposende consisting of rolling sand dunes and views of the Cávado river estuary. After completing that detour, we passed through the smaller town of Fão. Our guide recommended that we make a short diversion in Fão to check out Pastelaria Fãozense for the local specialty, which is Clarinhas de Fão (pastries made with pumpkin threads). Alas, Pastelaria Fãozense was closed for vacation when we came by, but just across the way is another local bakery specializing in Clarinhas de Fão, Pasuca.
Moinho De Sal (Apúlia, Portugal)
After a nice, scenic afternoon of hiking from Aguçadoura, we arrived in the coastal resort town of Apúlia, which sports a nice, large harbor, a good sandy beach, and a scenic series of sand dunes all topped with old windmills with a boardwalk connecting them. However, being a Sunday evening, we had to deal with a logistical issue: a good fraction of the dining establishments in town, even those still open in the off-season, are closed on Sundays. But luckily, one of the town’s better fine dining restaurants, Moinho de Sal (“Salt Mill”, as in windmill), was open and we managed to get reservations.
Café Dunas (Aguçadoura, Portugal)
After a splendid evening in Porto, the next morning it was time to head out on our Atlantic coastal hike. We started by catching a ride up to Póvoa de Varzim, a major coastal resort area along the Atlantic coastline. Much of the initial hike was along Póvoa de Varzim’s waterfront, and since we were hiking in October, just after the main holiday season, the waterfront’s many, many small cafés and bars for the summer tourists had mostly gone into off-season mode, either closed entirely or limiting their operating hours. As we reached the northern outskirts of Póvoa de Varzim, the settlements all leave the water’s edge and retreat behind the large sand dunes the compose much of Portugal’s Atlantic seaboard, and the various stores and resort amenities thin out. But we knew there was at least one café in Aguçadoura that still regularly operates in the off-season, and that was our destination: Café Dunas.
DeCastro Novo de Gaia (Vila Nova de Gaia, Portugal)
Before departing on our coastal hike, we had a Saturday evening in Porto to do some light sightseeing and revisit some favorite sites. We had pretty thoroughly explored Porto in 2018, and one of the areas we liked visiting was the sister city of Vila Nova de Gaia on the other side of the Douro river, and after walking the waterfront and enjoying a Porto Tonico at one of the sidewalk cafés, it was time to consider dinner. Much of the time Porto is the quieter, more laid back city compared to Lisbon, but that doesn’t generally apply to weekends: Porto’s waterfront is absolutely hopping on the warmer weekends of the year, so it was important for us to find a place where we could get reservations, hopefully for some good Portuguese food to start to get us calibrated for our walk. After consulting The Fork (which seems to get more support in Europe than OpenTable), we booked a table at DeCastro Novo de Gaia.
Health Check: Casa Guedes (Porto, Portugal)
After our day of exploration in Lisbon, our next stop was Porto, to rendezvous with my brother and sister-in-law to start our hike. Taking the very excellent Alfa Pendular high-speed train, after a comfortable journey we soon found ourselves arriving at Porto Campanha station. From there to our hotel down by the Douro Waterfront is a relatively short walk, so we decided to use this as an opportunity to do one of Offbeat Eats Health Check re-visits to a favorite spot from our 2018 trip, Casa Guedes.
Restaurante Raízes (Lisbon, Portugal)
Our main vacation this year was a two-week trip to Portugal, centering on a hike from Povoa de Varzim to Caminha along the Caminho Português da Costa. While our previous trip to Portugal was staged through Porto, between cheaper fares and sitting on a giant American Airlines credit from some weather-related delays back in March, we ended up booking through Lisbon and then taking the train over to Porto the next day to rendezvous with my brother and sister-in-law. This gave us a nice day of air travel recovery while exploring some of the lesser-traveled parts of Lisbon, including the excellent aquarium. Lisbon is a very popular and crowded tourist destination these days, so when it came time for dinner, I decided this would be a good opportunity to eschew the more popular parts of Lisbon (Alfama, Baixa, and Chiado), so I found a nice little family restaurant in the Lapa district west of downtown, Restaurante Raizes.
Tony Luke’s PHL (Philadelphia International Airport)
As our regular readers know, we’re often (although not as often as pre-Pandemic) darting off to destinations both exotic and prosaic, and most of the time that means grabbing the occasional airport meal. As you can read in my many airport dining reviews, dining in airports is pretty much never ideal. You’re dealing with higher prices, service challenges, tight timelines, and often poor ambiance. But every once in a while I find a case where an airport managed to scare up an actually good option, such as our stop at Tony Luke’s at Philadelphia International Airport.
Southern Pie Café (Chester, VT)
With all of the recent travel between Saratoga Springs and our home in NH, I got to tweak the routes a few times so I wasn’t driving past the same places all the time, and one of our returns trips had us taking State Highway 11 across the state instead of our more usual US-4 route. This took us right through Chester, VT right around a “late lunch” hour, which finally gave me an opportunity to stop and check out another perennial establishment on our “should visit sometime” list: Southern Pie Café.
Speckled Pig Brewing Co. (Ballston Spa, NY)
On our last full day visiting with our friends in Saratoga Springs, we decided to drive down to nearby Ballston Spa in order to do some thrift store shopping. Oh, I’m already well-stocked, but our friends managed to score quite a few items for their new condo, including a most-awesome, mint-condition vintage 1960s waffle iron from ReShop, identical to the one that my parents still use to this day (“don’t try to clean that, the seasoning is over 50 years old!”). After a few other choice finds, including some vintage FiestaWare, we retired to the nearby Speckled Pig Brewing Company for some lunch.
Hamlet & Ghost (Saratoga Springs, NY)
In late September, I ended up having my third trip to the Adirondack region, this time with Carol and the dogs accompanying me, which really opened up a lot of options when it came to dining since we didn’t have to race anywhere to take care of the doggos. My previous trips had focused primarily on breakfast joints, local watering holes, and smaller dinner spots, and this time, we decided it was a good excuse to go with our hosts Liz and Wesley to one of the better high-end dining options in Saratoga Springs, Hamlet & Ghost.
Random Posts
Lalo’s Taqueria (Lebanon, NH)
17 Sep 2020
(Closed) Well, it’s been pretty quiet here at the blog. My last real restaurant review (of a repeat trip to Pied de Cochon’s Cabane a sucre) was for a visit that happened almost a year ago. Here in NH, March 16th 2020 brought the abrupt closure of restaurants, and now a full six months into Covid, we’re still not back to order. Many places have closed permanently, and with very few exceptions, almost every restaurant still running is, quite frankly, trying to make do with a combination of takeout, outside dining (now on the wane as the temperature drops), and “socially-distanced” dining, and most places are trying more to just stay open than put their best foot forward. I’ve actually got photos and partial reviews for a good dozen places in my backlog, but most of them are now outdated reviews of how things once were, and not how things are, but it seems like a poor time for restaurant reviews in general until things recover a bit more (and nobody wants to read reviews of an experience they can’t currently indulge in). But there have been quite a few bright spots throughout the dismal Covid-19 landscape. I’ve seen more than a few creative approaches for outdoor dining, takeout (including more than a few retrofitted takeout windows), and ways to just keep basic operations going (and staff employed). And in this landscape filled with restaurant closures both temporary and permanent, my local area has even had one notable restaurant opening: Lalo’s Taqueria.
Marcel (Paris, France)
06 Oct 2023
My travels in France had me spending a spare weekend in Paris (quelle horreur!), and on Sunday morning, after a stroll through the north end of downtown Paris, ending up in Montmartre, I realized I was starting to get a bit hungry, and I set off looking for a decent breakfast or brunch. The Parisiens definitely do brunch, but in my case it was still 10:00, which is a bit on the early side; so instead of going to one of the many cafes and bistros around the base of Sacré-Cœur for a brunch, I had a bit of time to wander around some of the quieter corners of the neighbor. I ended up looping through Villa Léandre about two blocks of Sacré-Cœur, a fairly quiet residential area that’s got a fair amount of art deco decor, and that’s where I found Marcel.
