Offbeat Eats

My last post covered one of the best-rated places to get Portugal’s most famous dessert/snack treat, Pastéis de Nata, at Manteigaria in central Lisbon. However, no discussion of Pastéis de Nata is complete without a discussion of another, similar famous Pastéis, the Pastéis de Belém. Unlike the ubiquitous Pastéis de Nata, Pastéis de Belém are basically available from one place, the eponymous Pastéis de Belém bakery in Lisbon’s Belém waterside district.

After we finished exploring Coimbra for 3 days, it was time to head back to Lisbon for the last several days of our vacation. After a relatively quick and pleasant train ride on the Alfa Pendular train, we arrived at Lisbon’s Santa Apolónia railway station (Lisbon’s oldest), checking into the quite posh Editory Riverside, which is actually built from the old in-station hotel. Checking in, the friendly clerk at the front desk offered up quite a few recommendations for dining in Lisbon, and particularly, a recommendation for breakfast: going into the Baixa district and having a proper Pastel de Nata at Manteigaria.

As we were wandering about Coimbra, our paths frequently took us through Praça do Comércio, which has several restaurants, bars, and gelato shops amongst the various furniture shops and churches that complete one of Baixa Coimbra’s main shopping areas. But there was once place that was impossible to ignore, since almost every daytime trip through the Praça smelled strongly of KFC. No, not Kentucky Fried Chicken, but it’s Eastern sibling, Korean Fried Chicken. Each trip through the Praça smelled richly of heavily spiced fried chicken, garlic, kimchi and gochujang. And while was was adoring Portuguese food, it isn’t exactly known for being particularly spicy, so after a half dozen passes through the area, we finally gave into the temptation and stopped in to Seoul Chicken for lunch.

After our near-legendary marathon dining session at O Palco the previous evening, on our second day in Coimbra we were looking for a rather light lunch the next day as we were wandering the many steep streets of Coimbra. This eventually brought us to a place I had seen the previous day while walking R. Quebra Costas (“The Street that Breaks Ribs”), a steep staircase just below Sé Velha de Coimbra. Halfway up the steps is this little joint, A Tasquinha (“The Tavern”) with a single service counter with some stools, and a few small tables spilling out onto the outdoor stairs in good weather. This was pretty much exactly the sort of light lunch spot we were looking for.

After we finished with our coastal hike, we eventually needed to get back to Lisbon for our return trips. Instead of heading back through Porto (which all of us had previously experienced), we decided that we’d take a minor diversion to check out another of Portugal’s major cities: Coimbra. Home to Portugal’s primary university, Coimbra is an old town on a hillside that, in a country known for steep cities, is particularly steep, and fun to explore. Another advantage of Portugal is that it has quite a few high-end (and particularly Michelin-starred) restaurants that are still relatively affordable, and a few of the better-reviewed places in Portugal are located in Coimbra. We ended up taking our first evening in Coimbra to visit O Palco (“the stage”). While they haven’t yet received a star, they have some top-of-class cuisine, with an elaborate 12-course meal.

After an afternoon of recovery and exploration of the pleasant little city of Caminha, it was time for a full post-hike celebratory dinner. One place we had found just inside the city walls on the north end of town particularly caught our eye: Canto do Lobo (“Wolf Song”).

After leaving Vila Praia de Âncora, the last day of our coastal hike was a relatively short one; after around 5 km of hiking we came to the village of Moledo and the Minho river, which serves at the boundary between Spain and Portugal. Eschewing the many offers by competing water taxi companies thinking we were pilgrims needing a ride over to Spain to continue hiking the Caminho, we soon arrived in the pleasant ancient walled city of Caminha where the Minho river is intersected by the smaller Coura river. It’s a nice little town that still has much of its medieval city walls, and after we arrived at the formal end of our walk, the Chafariz Praça Conselheiro Silva Torres, a 16th century functional watering fountain, we decided to have a nice break for lunch, settling on nearby Casa Almeida.