Olá, tudo bem? Hello, I am Tony from Road Trip Spain and Portugal, where we help you plan the perfect trip with practical information and Insider tips. Today's
video is going to be a real feast because we are going to talk about the wonderful Portuguese
gastronomy, as we take a culinary tour around the capital of Portugal. We are going to introduce you
to several typical Lisbon flavors while visiting the bars and restaurants where we ate them. We have
just visited Lisbon three times to shoot videos for the channel and during all those trips one
of our central interests was the local gastronomy and every time we sat down for lunch or dinner
we always tried to order typical Lisbon dishes so we can now share the experience with you. With
this video we don't want to make a treaty on the delicious Portuguese cuisine, nor would we have the
means to do so, but we do want to point out dishes and flavors that we think are worth trying. Before
we start, we visited all the places anonymously and paid for the meals out of our very own pocket. In the description of the video you will find the addresses of all the restaurants mentioned
throughout the video. Before we sit down to eat lunch, let's start with some tira-gostos, which are
small portions of food that can be eaten at any time of the day. In other words, they are appetizers.
Let's start with one of Portugal's most typical tira-gostos, the bolinho de bacalhau made with shredded
cod, potatoes, onion, garlic, eggs and seasoning, which are molded into small balls and fried in hot
oil until golden brown and crispy on the outside. Few things beat a well done bolinho de bacalhau.
They can be ordered as a snack in any bar or as a starter in a restaurant. We tried the bolinhos from
the Bonjardim restaurant as a starter, which were very good and earn our highest rating of 5
stars. We also tried the bolinho from the famous bar O Trevo. We were served a cold bolinho so
our rating cannot be very good. Another popular delicacy also made with cod are patascas,
they are kind of fried flat cod balls made with flower dough, eggs, chopped onion, parsley and
shredded cod. Like bolinhos de bacalhau, they can be ordered as an appetizer or as a main course. We
had pataniscas at the D'Bacalhau restaurant, which were delicious and earned our top rating.
The third fast food you should know and try is bifana. This is a typical dish made of soft bread
stuffed with slices of pork meat, seasoned with garlic and white wine, which can be grilled or
fried. Bifana is a very practical fast food that you will find in many places. At O Trevo we
had bifana on the recommendation of the late chef Anthony Bourdain. They were unexceptional but
tasty. But the bifanas we really loved were the ones from Casa das Bifanas, really delicious. And
now we're going to sit down to eat. A very important clarification before we start on a subject that
surprises many foreigners. As soon as you sit down at the table you will probably be served a couvert. This couvert in Portugal can have many different formats. It will almost always have a basket with various
breads, sometimes olives, sometimes cheese. This couvert is not a courtesy of the house and you
pay for it. The more ingredients it has, the more expensive it is, especially if it includes cheese.
The price is usually listed on the menu. If you don't want the couvert ask the waiter who brought
it to take it away or leave it in a corner of the table and don't touch it. If you haven't touched
it, you won't be charged for it. The couver is not usually expensive and we almost always accept the
bread, which is usually very good in Portugal. How about starting the meal with a soup? Caldo verde
is probably Portugal's most famous soup, made with cabbage, potato, onion, garlic and served with some
thinly sliced chorizo. And of course, seasoned with delicious olive oil. A good "broa", a typical
Portuguese bread, is a perfect accompaniment to caldo verde. Many places prepare caldo verde,
but a real Lisbon classic, especially for those on a tight budget, is the popular A Merendeira, which has
an unbeatable value menu that includes not only Caldo Verde but also traditional bread with chorizo.
And let's move on to the main dishes. We confess that when we visit Portugal, we like the favors
of the sea much more than the meaty dishes, but we made a small foray into meats at a very popular
and simple restaurant in Belém, the Tasca do Gordo, famous for its meats. We were not very lucky on
the day of our visit, the meat was quite tough. We tried a beef kebab and a pork chop. Only the
beans that came with the meat were a real treat. But from the very positive comments we read on the
internet it must have been our unlucky day. The restaurant is simple and popular. And we would like
to take this opportunity to point out that in many restaurants it is possible to order a half portion
of a dish. As you will see written on the menu, half dose. In cases where it is possible to
order half portion, it serves the needs of one person, while the full plate serves two,
Where we were happier with meat was with a traditional frango piri-piri, a roast chicken
served with piri-piri sauce a spicy sauce from Africa that came to Portugal through its colonies.
We love spicy dishes and piri-piri chicken is one of our favorite meals in Lisbon. At Bonjardim
restaurant, where we had a great cod fish pie, if you remember, we had an extraordinary piri-piri
chicken. It is a very popular restaurant and worth booking in advance. But enough meat, let's
go to the sea, let's pay homage to Portugal's fishing tradition. Arroz de marisco, seafood
rice, is a very typical dish. It would be what in Spain is called "arroz caldoso", a rice
dish with plenty of sauce that comes with all kinds of seafood, such as clams, prawns, mussels,
cockles and others. We tried the rice at the Uma Restaurant, which claims to serve the best
arroz de marisco in the world. The rice was good quite tasty, but for the price you pay it is
logical that the seafood is not going to be first class. It is a very touristy restaurant that it's
always full and there is only one dish on the menu, rice with seafood, which arrives at the table in a
large portion served in a pot. Another very common seafood in Lisbon restaurants is polvo, octopus, which we ate in the preparation called polvo à lagareiro, with boiled and then grilled
octopus and roasted potatoes. We ate octopus at the restaurant Atira-te ao rio in the city of Almada, on
the other side of the Tagus river, with wonderful views of Lisbon. It was very good but be aware
that octopus, good octopus, is never a cheap dish. Prices here are a bit expensive mainly due to the
location. Grilled fish is a great star of the local cuisine and a national passion. Always fresh, you
will find everything, from the popular sardines to species that are highly priced in Portugal
such as the wonderful carapaus. There are plenty of restaurants that grill fish in Lisbon. We have
the ones in the images at Casa da Índia near Chiado, very good, very reasonably priced in a very simple
place and always full of people, both tourists and locals. And now we come to the most important
part of the video where we are going to talk about cod, in Portuguese bacalhau. Any description
of the importance of code in Portuguese culture is going to fall short. One way to, at least,
try to understand how a fish taken from the cold waters of the North Atlantic came to occupy
such an important place in Portugal is to visit the Interpretative Center of the History of
Bacalhau, which we talked about in our Lisbon top 20. Cod is everywhere, in the streets, in
the markets, in the supermarkets, in the popular imagination. You may have heard that there are as
many cold recipes in Portugal as there are days in the year, if not more. As we have eaten quite
a lot of cod, we are now going to show you some cod recipes and where we ate them. In the Campo de
Ourique Market, where there is a gourmet market, we ate one of the most common cold recipes in Portugal,
a recipe invented in Lisbon: bacalhau à bras. It is prepared with shredded cod, fried potatoes, scrambled egg, onion,
olives and parsley. We also had the same recipe on our trip to Sintra at the restaurant Bacalhau na
Vila. A very well presented dish that we liked very much. Bacalhau com natas is another classic recipe and
one of our favorites. It is baked with cod and layers of onion, potato and cream. At Casa do Bacalhau
we had one of the best bacalhau com natas ever, with the addition of several prawns on top, a xod
dish that did justice to the price we paid for it. At D'Bacalhau restaurant we ordered a tasting which
included the two recipes mentioned so far, plus bacalhau à lagareiro and bacalhau com broa. We liked all the dishes very much and found it an
interesting way to get acquainted with a variety of recipes. The portions were plentiful. And since
it's also nice to try cod in a purer form, Cecilia ordered a fresh cod stew during our visit to
the aforementioned Atira-te ao rio. As we were focused on fish, we ordered very few desserts. The only one
we ordered whenever it was available on the menu,, I am crazy about it, and unfortunately for me
it's not that easy to find, is the Molotov, a large pudding made with egg whites and caramel.
It is sensational. And if they don't have molotov in the restaurant look for it in a pastelaria. As
many of you will know, there is a Lisbon sweet that has become world famous, a sort of gastronomic
icon of Portugal, which we are going to talk about now. It is the perfect accompaniment to a
coffee mid-morning, mid-afternoon or at any time of the day or night. We are talking, of course, about
pastéis de nata, and if you haven't tried them yet we don't know what you're waiting for. Pastéis de nata
are individual-sized pastries made with puff pastry and filled with a mixture of milk, lemon,
cinnamon, sugar and eggs, with recipes that change depending on who makes them. The invention, inspired
by the sweets made in convents, took place in the Belém district, in the confectionery known
today as Pastéis de Belém, where the authentic pastéis of the same name, where the authentic past
pastéis de Belém are made. Only here the pastéis de nata may be called pastéis de Belém, but the
recipe is the same and they are the same thing. when you visit the Berlin neighborhood make sure
you visit this pastry shop and its delicacies. It has a very large space inside where you can see
how the sweets are made. Insider tip: you should know that there is a very slow queue on the right,
to buy to take away, and a much faster queue on the left, to eat inside the confectionery. The usual
thing to do is to put sugar and cinnamon on top of the pastries. Everyone has their favorite pastéis de nata, ours are from Manteigaria, with many stores all over Lisbon. But there is life beyond the pastéis de nata, as you'll discover by looking in the pastelarias shop windows. If your budget is fairly
generous -otherwise don't even go near- the cakes at the Alcoa cake shop in the Chiado neighborhood
are sublime, even if the prices are anything but enticing. Good thing you don't pay to look. Once you
finish your meal, there's nothing like a typical Lisbon digestive drink. In the Rossio area you will
find two traditional producers, Ginjinha Espinheira and Ginjinha Sem Rival, very close to each other,
who both make ginjinha. Ginjinha is a 20 proof liquor made from sour cherries. It is served in a small glass
and it is customary for the glass to contain a small fruit along with the liquor. Both Espinheira
and Sem Rival are very simple places. You go in, order your glass or glasses, drink it and continue
the tour. We have our favorite Ginjinha, we want to know if it matches yours. And we end the video
with one last culinary tip for those visiting Lisbon in the cold because, yes, visiting Lisbon
in autumn and part of winter means bringing a coat and being prepared for the cold. But the city
has a reward you won't find any other time of the year, the wonderful roasted chestnuts. What a joy it
is to see the streets filled with the smoke rising from the chestnut vendors. When the chestnut season
arrives these vendors set up in strategic places in the cities to sell their chestnuts. In Spain
we also have roasted chestnuts but until now we have not tasted any that matches the quality of
the Portuguese chestnuts, with their unmistakable and delicious flavor. And with chestnuts we come
to the end of our introduction to some typical flavors of Lisbon. We hope we have given you some
valuable tips for your stay in the city. If you have any questions on the topic of the video, just ask. You will see now on the screen our top 20 of Lisbon, 20 reasons to fall in love with the capital of Portugal. Let's
go to that video where we are waiting for you.
