the meals I had in Portugal

it’s been more than a year since I’ve returned from Portugal but never quite got down to recording it. thought I’d better do it before potentially changing phones. this post features some of the meals I had in chronological order. I can’t say that Portugal is a food haven – food was edible, but not quite what I’d consider delicious. I distinctly remember feeling disappointed with the food while I was there…but it could just have been depression clouding every thing.

Lisbon

near the mosteiro dos jeronimos, i found a cafe (flor dos jeronimos) serving the prato do dia: grilled octopus

I originally meant to spend Christmas in Porto, but somehow, when I reached Lisbon, the depression was so overwhelming that I felt I needed to get home earlier. the flight couldn’t be changed online, so I had to go to the booking window at the airport to get it changed. I shortened my trip by a whole week. it seems extremely wasteful, but it was the meaningful choice at that point in time. this was the first meal I had after the fact, where I felt the trip was a lot more manageable.
from the supermarket: roast chicken and quiche

Fatima

this was a great hot meal at lebre churrasqueira after a morning of exploring Fatima.

it was the down-season in winter, so many places weren’t open in the evening. I was rather relieved to find Combo Caffe open serving hot sandwiches. it was my reward after doing the stations of the cross + reaching 16 in ingress. somehow, I remember texting rhodenbarr while I was having this meal. he was the only one from Singapore who was up that late.

Sintra

I had the seasonal special from hamburguer real: goat cheese, walnut and honey hamburger.
the burger itself was good, but the goat cheese got a bit much and I kinda regretted my choice. should have ordered the normal burgers hahah.

casa piriquita is the most famous sweets shop in sintra, possibly all Portugal. by sweets, I do mean all manner of sweets, from hot chocolate to pastries. I really wished I had company for this meal. I ordered the shop’s specialties, but they ceased to be enjoyable after a few bites because they were too damn sweet. sharing it with a friend or two would have been nice.

this fish diner was recommended by our guide of the free walking tour of Lisbon. I happened to hit it off well with a couple on the tour so I had company for this meal. the diner itself is kinda non-descript, and they run out of daily specials pretty quickly!

my last meal in Portugal was a bacalhau (cod) sandwich for breakfast at O Trevo. it was rather strange eating fried cod in bread (kinda dry?). it was rather early in the day, and it was a pity that they didn’t have the bifana (pork sandwich) ready yet, or that would have been my first choice.

ended the trip with hot wine at the Christmas market, with the winter sun finally showing its face.

now I have a craving for hot wine!

sunday cooking 10

my entire family sans me were invited to a wedding lunch, so I decided to cook myself a feast in their absence. (havoc in the kitchen without anyone’s interference!)

this is the first time I bought (half a) fresh chicken from the butcher – usually I’d only order the breast, thought I’d try something new. marinated in salt, pepper, italian herb mix and a splash of orange juice.

I oiled the pan with the chicken skin before sautéing the onions, followed by the peppers (I like my peppers very soft). next came the potatoes and the chicken, and a can of lager.

chicken stew! the recipe asked for stout, but I substituted it with a strong brew in my possession that I didn’t enjoy. great way to use up unwanted alcohol.

my sister ate my leftovers for dinner and she liked it! hooray. but she prefers last week’s egg-tomato dish haha.

sunday cooking 9

I tried my hand at a basic shakshouka of chopped tomatoes, sausages and runny eggs.

definitely an all-day breakfast dish I’d repeat!

What the living do during the Hungry Ghost Festival

I’m guessing some foreign readers had their interest piqued by my mention of the Seventh Month in the previous post – quite a number of clicks for the wikipedia link!

You may be interested to see how it is celebrated then. (I’ll admit, I don’t know much – a lot of it are just practices I observe year after year without understanding the symbolism behind.)

There’s usually entertainment put up for the visiting souls – the traditional one being Teochew street opera on make-shift stages.

When there are seats laid out, the first row would be left empty for the ‘good brothers’. In this case, no seats were laid out, but there were decorated joss candles (sustenance for the spirits) and offerings being burnt.

There would be a big (again, make-shift) altar for deity worship –

The gods depicted on the banner are FuLuShou – Prosperity, Status and Longevity. This particular ceremony was organised by the Redhill Market association. The evening would begin with prayer and invocation of the spirits for their blessing and continued support, thereafter the hawkers gather for dinner and a very noisy auction of auspicious objects.

Those objects would have been blessed earlier at the altar and include things like deity statuettes made of gold and pots of blessed rice that you can choose to display or cook. The proceeds from the auction will go toward funding entertainment like the street opera and getai (lit. song stage) for next year’s seventh month.

While the living enjoy their food, nobody forgets about the invisible guests. Dinner is set aside for them too –

Note the joss sticks sticking out of the rice bowls. This is why we Chinese, no matter what religion we may subscribe to, think it rude (some say inauspicious) to stick chopsticks into rice bowls. It is customary to lay them flat on the rim of the bowl.

Hope you enjoyed this slice of old Singapore, with rituals that have since died out in China under communist rule.

Eating in Xinjiang

One of the harder parts of travelling alone in China comes from finding good food. Asians, in general, pride communal meals, and the classic Chinese meal consists of several dishes shared around a table. Of course there are options for the solo eater, just that you’ve got less variety.

My favourite was the pilaf/zhua fan. I didn’t take pictures of it because it’s essentially a picture of fried rice. What’s unique about it is that it’s cooked w lots of raisins. What’s not so pleasant about it is that the rice glistens with oil, and you can feel your arteries clogging as you eat.

Another is the beef lamian (hand-pulled noodles). Again, no pictures because everyone knows what a bowl of noodles looks like. In China, they’ve got budget options. When you order a ‘niu rou la mian’, the default dish is plain noodles in beef soup. If you want your beef noodles to be served with slices of beef, you gotta specify ‘la mian jia niu rou’ (noodles, add beef).

You’ll see people eating (savoury) naan bread everywhere. Here’s the most popular chain, Abdullah’s Naan (see the red signboard on the right) –

People eat this as the main meal or as a midday snack. I personally found it too dry (used to the Indian version in Singapore!) and I don’t like sesame seeds in my food so I had this only once. To be eaten on its own, or spread with cream cheese.

Hand-made ice cream!

(note the pirated haagen-dazs design, which reads ‘wish you success in the examination’)
I was slightly disturbed that the ice cream was exposed to the air like in the photograph, but I decided to take a chance with my tummy. I was fine, but then of course my stomach has survived street food all over so that’s really up to the individual.

And finally, my favourite yang rou chuan/mutton kebabs!

I ate this whenever I could! I wish I had more!

Today’s dinner: Camembert on Crackers!

Something I’ve been looking forward to! Just that every time I wanted this, we’d had too heavy a dinner to have this as dessert. Today, it was the meal proper.

Australian camembert, pate de jamon, Meiji crackers and seedless grapes.

Accompanied by Mazzei wine (that which I lovingly brought back from Fonterutoli in Tuscany, Italy) and uh, orange juice for my teetotaller friend.

Sunday cooking 8

My niece demanded to eat my cooking, and then I was informed to ‘might as well cook for everyone’…so here’s the result…

Beehoon (rice vermicelli) in soup with minced chicken, diced carrots, sliced onions and button mushrooms.

My Favourite Place to Eat in Florence

I am in great need of comfort food, but after my holiday in Italy, I’ve steered clear of ordering pasta here for they tend to be rather disappointing. (unless cooked by me, for then I only have myself to blame)

When I think of the best meals I had in Italy, I think of the home-cooked ones I had at an Airbnb, and I think of Ristorante Self-Service Leonardo.

Located on the first floor (k, this bit confuses me as we don’t do the ground floor, 1st floor thing as they do in Europe. Here, I refer to the storey one up from the ground floor) of a building just viewable off The Duomo. The name doesn’t sound like much, and in fact the place doesn’t look like much either.

But man, the food!!!

You can see the food counter essentially looking like Ikea, or some school cafeteria, where you take a tray, pick a salad from the fridge if you want, point at the main you want, and it’s scooped onto a plate for you. Then you shuffle along to the dessert fridge, ending with the wines (bottled for the individual), thereafter the cashier.

Here’s the seating area – nothing posh, but who cares when the food is awesome and affordable?

I was a repeat customer, and you can see the variety of options that allowed me an entirely different meal whenever I was there – pastas, meats, wines, desserts.

Just thinking about the comfort food makes me sad that I can’t find something as simple, homely and satisfying here. Pasta tends to be run-of-the-mill, Italian trattorias are pretentious and you feel like you’re paying for the decor instead of the food. oh well.

Meet Zio (Uncle) Luciano, proprietor of the ristorante!

He calls me ‘bambina’ – apparently baby girl? The Asian feminist in me wants to bristle at the nickname but I also appreciate a boss who knows his returning customers and ‘bosses them around’ in a nice, uncle-y fashion. Perks of being a regular – he always instructs the kitchen to serve me a piping hot version of whatever dish I pick. Yay.

Ristorante Self-Service Leonardo
Via de Pecori 11, Firenze
Open for lunch and dinner daily (as of Dec 2014)

Sunday cooking 7

prepared a snack: honey roasted macadamia nuts

wanted it to be a healthier version so i decided to skip the last step of rolling them in a fine sugar and salt mix. it still tastes good, for sure, but they now clump together in a rather irritating fashion.

then there was the basic brunch: omelette and chicken.

i think I’ve about perfected the art of pan-frying chicken breast slices…they come out really juicy and tender. however, that effect doesn’t last, and when they cool they become the regular dry slices we too frequently associate with the chicken breast. wonder if there’s a way around that.

Sunday cooking 6

The results of my marketing trip: Brunch!

just a simple fry-up with sauteed red onions (that made me cry quite hard), sauteed button mushrooms, and chicken breast slices marinated in mixed Italian herbs, salt and white pepper.

my food presentation needs a bit of work…