Last of Lisbon

I went to dinner with an English guy I met in the hostel I’d checked in to, as well as a German guy who was on holiday. The English guy, Alan, had been in Lisbon for a week or so, and he knew a good area of town to eat in. The general rule on restaurants is this: If the menu is translated in English, the food will be mediocre at best, and if you are the only foreigners sitting in any given restaurant, you’ve got a better shot of getting authentic, non-touristy food. Both of these criteria were met in the place we chose, and I was in for a real treat.

The three of us ordered a bottle of wine, ate a salad and bread as starters, and then came the main dish. Since Lisbon is bordered by a river/ocean inlet, there are some fresh fish to be had. I ordered the some type of fish whose name I can’t remember, but it sounded something like Seabring, and it was heaven transcended into tender fishy goodness. I learned from Alan how to properly eat a fish when it arrives fully assembled. If you do it right you can avoid most of the bones (if you do it wrong, however [like my first few bites], you’ll be picking an army of fishbone toothpics out of your teeth). I can say with complete confidence that this fish was the best fish I’ve ever had. What followed the fish turned out to be another best, this time chocolate cake. I apologize for writing so much about one meal, but it was too good to omit. I’ve never enjoyed belching after a meal as much as I did that night.

After one of my (and Alan’s as well) top ten best meals, we went out to Barrio Alto, the bar neighborhood. When I say bar neighborhood, I don’t mean that there are a few bars located on a street, and that’s where people tend to go in for a beer. I mean that an entire neighborhood is congested with booze-besotted youth, drinking more on the street than in bars. Take Madison’s infamous Mifflin Street Block Party, make it a grid instead of a line, add twice the amount of people, let them drink on the street, remove the police, put it on a hillside similar to San Francisco, and do it every night of the week instead of once a year; then you’ve almost got the picture. This scene continues until around 3-4 in the morning, at which point the club-goers pile into cabs and hit up a riverfront area for dance clubs (that serve alcohol as well). The clubs won’t close until around 8am. The next day I made it out to the southwest part of town. I saw an impressive cathedral and ate pie; but not just any pie. This pie is famous; it’s from a place called «I forgot the name, it’s written somewhere», and there are only three living people who know the recipe. The establishment is impossible to miss. It’s the only place with a line of 50 people snaking out the door. The pies are egg based with a flaky crust, topped with cinnamon and powdered sugar; damn good!