Offbeat Eats

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.

After leaving Amorosa, an afternoon of hiking took us from the relatively sparse world of coastlines, beaches, and coastal resorts into Viano do Castelo, which is actually a small metro area with a population approaching 100,000. After a few explorations around the area, we had a delightful Portuguese dinner at a small spot called Taberna Cantinho de Viana… which I’m not writing up since I discovered they closed two weeks after my visit. Oh well, that’s the restaurant business. But the next day, we had a shorter coastal hike up to the resort city of Vila Praia de Âncora, a well-known surfing city with a harbor that has a boardwalk-like atmosphere of bars and restaurants that, during the high season, offer outdoor dining. But many of these places are still open in the off-season, including our destination for the evening, Restaurante Fortaleza.

After leaving Viano do Castelo, our Caminho hike returned to the coast. Unlike the stretch of the Caminho down by our start in Povoa de Varzim, for the rest of our hike most of the hiking was along fairly quiet and undeveloped coastal stretches. This was one of our longer days (14 km), and almost the entirety of the hike was through undeveloped areas and beaches, with one exception, the town of Amorosa. Amorosa is the settlement associated with Praia Amarosa, one of the Minha’s best-regarded beaches for surfing, but the town itself is nestled behind the dunes with two separate settlement centers: the older village along the southern Praia, and the new city that’s block upon block of large apartment buildings built for vacationers. I’ll be honest, the newer part of town seemed pretty soulless to me, especially in the off-season, and we ran into the reality than in October, with the beach running only a few die-hard surfers, pretty much everything in town was shut down, aside from two places in the village. We decided to check out one of them, Pastelaria Amorosa.

After leaving the pleasant seaside town of Esposende, the Caminho Português da Costa takes an inland detour through some coastal marshes, and after a pleasant day of hiking we ended up in the small town of Castelo do Neiva, staying in one of the most elaborate and luxurious hotels of our Portugal trip, the Quinta do Monteverde, a 17th century manor house with large outdoor gardens and pools. The Quinta’s innkeeper pointed us at two feasible options for dinner: Picanha Brasil Oficial, a Brazilian BBQ place, and O Tasco Regional, a wine and tapas bar. We opted for the latter, heading up to the top of the hill in Castelo do Neiva.

After our pastry stop in Fão, another 90 minutes of hiking and crossing of the Cávado river, we arrived in the town center of Esposende. Another of the region’s seaside resort towns, Esposende is also a regional hub for agriculture and fishing, so the town is pretty substantial, around 30k residents, and has two reasonably busy business areas (one on the waterfront, and a similar one around the old town). However, we arrived on a Monday, which is one of the nights when many restaurants are closed. But with a short walk around town, we found Pizzeria Di Pappi, which was open, and quite popular, especially the outdoor patio, but they managed to fit us into the inside seating.