Offbeat Eats

Our third full day in Lisbon involved a trek up to visit Igreja da Graça, one of Libson’s oldest churches and convents, which sits atop one of the city’s tallest hills (and, coincidentally, has an extremely nice rooftop terrace for viewing the city). Before heading up there, we stopped for breakfast, settling on a small place we had encountered a few times before: Hello Kristof.

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.

There are all sorts of famous rivalries out there in existence, especially in the food world. Geno’s vs Pat’s in Philly (although I’m more of a Tony Luke’s guy myself). American Coney Island vs Lafayette Coney Island in Detroit. Pepe’s vs Sally’s in New Haven. The rivalries go on everywhere. The Boston equivalent that I run into the most often involves cannoli, with the two most-celebrated places being Mike’s Pastry and Modern Pastry, located within sight of each other. After my last two visits to the North End involving a stop at Mike’s, I figured it was time to check out Modern as well.

While our hotel (Chateau Versailles) had a perfectly decent continental breakfast included with it, we were craving French pastries. So we went down the road looking for a nice local boulangerie. What we found was one location of a small Quebec chain, Premiere Moisson Boulangerie. Walking in, the first thing we spotted were two large display cased filled with all varieties of pastries, both savory and sweet, with all sorts of croissants, millefeuilles, muffins, tarts, and the like. The second thing we spotted was the queue, with several people all lined up waiting to order from the display cases. Carol and I opted to start out with the same thing, Pain au Chocolate and a large bowl of cafe au lait…