tuxette's Journal: Trip Report - Lisboa Day Three

Day three - 17th of October

TUXETTE'S PERSPECTIVE
Shopping: Boyfriend of tuxette's back was still bad and he wasn't in the mood to do anything overly touristy (just as well because it was raining), so we decided to make today a simple shopping day. We went to this big mall called Amoreiras. It was big and had a lot of stores (supposedly 300+), but it seems like once you've seen a mall, you've seen them all, and I didn't see much that I was overly impressed over. Same shit, different store name, different city. We went to a big sporting goods store to look at the goodies, especially the martial arts stuff, but it was quite expensive (as in may-as-well-buy-it-in-Norway-so-that-I-can-get-my-Krav-Maga-club-discount expensive) as well as not what we really wanted. We both bought some shoes at Timberland though, and at least for me they were shoes I would use for the rest of the trip. The ones I had were fine for a lot of walking - these were much better. Wow!

Lunch: At Sopas & Sopas, a fast food type soup bar. We both got a HUGE bowl of soup. My soup was a cabbage soup with side of pork, sausage, beans, and some macaroni. Boyfriend of tuxette had a vegetable soup. Both soups were very good and hearty. We had a side salad with the soups, as well as a bottle of water.

Dinner: Hmm...didn't write down the name of the restaurant, but it's located on Rua dos Correiros, a street full of restaurants (mostly geared towards tourists). We ate porco à alentejana, a dish made by mixing pork and clams with white wine and spices. This is a Portuguese specialty and one of the dishes we had on a list of things to try. It's good stuff, but I'm sure I could do a better job at it - and I did for dinner Sunday night :-) What you do is marinate the pork in white wine and spices, preferably overnight. Start cooking by draining the marinade (keep this!) and browning the pork. You then make a sauce of onions, garlic, and tomatoes and cook the clams in these. Add the pork and marinade, and cook until the marinade is reduced by a half, serve with potatoes, and perhaps a salad on the side... (if you want a recipe in 'proper' tuxette-style recipe format, let me know)

Wine: Biqueirão Vinho de Mesa Tato, Adega Cooperativa de Carvoeira. Color - red-blue. Nose - fruity cherries and currant toddy, blackberries. Palate - young and fruity. Good table wine. Rating - :-)

Observation: Beer is typically served in 0,2 liter glasses, and a large beer is served in 0,3 liter glasses. Fine for old ladies and tiny Southern European men, I guess.

Another observation: There are lots of street vendors who laminate things for you. There are a few beggars; some of them aren't shy in showing off their lack of limbs. Otherwise, there didn't seem to be much "trouble" on the streets. At least not what we've seen so far...

Lisbon traffic: Quite civilized for being Southern Europe. We were positively surprised that people actually stopped at the zebra crossing to let you cross the road. No crazy passing, no excessive use of the horn, no driving at 80 in a 50 zone, etc. I wonder how strict the traffic rules are...

Evening goodies: We had to buy some bottled water to drink in the hotel room, and we ended up buying a small paper carton of wine, a bottle of 10 year old port, some cheese, and a bag of potato chips in addition...

RING OF FAT PERSPECTIVE
Why aren't you eating more for breakfast? Look at all that ham and cheese and eggs and bacon there! And what's wrong with the fruitcake? Why aren't you eating any?

Stop looking at that sporting gear and feed me!

Soup? Just soup? With salad? Oh wait a minute! The soup has sausage in it! Tasty sausage!

I'm hungry! Feed me! Why do you keep walking past those shops with those lovely pastries displayed?

Mmm...pork and clams, washed down with red wine...

Hey, now this is more like it! Cheese! Potato chips! Port!

Day Two

sounds cool

[Mantorp]

I was in Portugal last year but only in Porto and east of there. I miss the food and of course that's mostly what you write about. I want crusty bread, cheese, ham and wine and I want it now.

Re:sounds cool

[tuxette]

Porto

Oooh, I wouldn't mind a glass of port right about now...

Are you able to get dried salt cod/klippfisk where you are?

Re:sounds cool

[Mantorp]

Yeah, but I don't really care for it

Re:sounds cool

[tuxette]

Heh, OK. Just curious.

What was your favorite meal over there?

Re:sounds cool

[Mantorp]

We stayed with the parents of a friend of mine and every morning his mom had coffee, fresh rolls, cheese and ham, ready on the table for us. That ham (like proscuitto but Portuguese and therefor better according to our host) was unbelievable. I don't understand how you can leave an entire ham out just sitting on the counter and the longer it sits the better it gets. It's like in those small nasty smoky cafes where they're hanging from the ceilings, they taste fantastic. So the aged ham, and then the homemad

Re:sounds cool

[tuxette]

Mmm...yeah. The Southern Europeans sure know how to make a great cured ham...

Considering you're allowed to smoke just about everywhere in Lisbon, it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. I'll write about that in another JE...

parse error

[ryanr]

Boyfriend of tuxette's back

I'm thinking... your back has a boyfriend? You stomach talks, so maybe so. Took my a sec to parse the meaning. I was thinking "my boyfriend's back" would have been better, but then I realized "hey na, hey na my boyfriend's back". So, dunno.

Wow, that is a "Large"?

[Allen Zadr]

I coulda sworn that most of the world considers a 'bottle o beer' at 0,325L, where a 'bottle' is pretty much considered a 'good start', not a 'whole night'. I hope it's just because you are in a tourist town.

Re:Wow, that is a "Large"?

[tuxette]

Lisbon isn't particularly touristy, at least compared to a lot of other major cities I've been to. As far as beer goes, getting 0,5 is standard in Northern Europe so 0,2 and even 0,3 was kind of a shock...