Wednesday October 18 started with some sun with a high of about 20C. By mid-afternoon, it became cloudy with some light rain. We had a quiet day in Lisbon. We had decided to have dinner at the apartment where Ann is staying just around the corner, as it is quite a bit larger than ours. We headed off to the Mercado de Ribeira (the traditional market attached to the Time Out Market), which is located near the river. However, we first had a mission to find Flor da Selva, a coffee roaster, that had been highly recommended by Célia, our Culinary Backstreets guide.
We headed down to the river passing some interesting statues and buildings.
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| Not sure about this one....man in clothes and naked woman |
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| Beautiful tiles |
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| Very modern building- no signage |
We reached our destination after about a 30 minute walk. It was past the Mercado, but we wanted to get the coffee first before our provisions for dinner. Flor da Selva is a roasting business, on a very narrow street, where one can buy coffee beans. We were greeted by Francisco, the grandson of the founder, who had just graduated with a Masters in Business. He will be taking over the business from his father, who presently runs it. We told him that Célia had recommended his coffee. Francisco made us espressos in a small office and then gave us a tour of the roastery.
It is a very hands on process. One employee who has been there over 20 years checks for consistency of the beans and stokes the roaster with wood (either oak or cork). They get coffee beans from all over the world, and he showed us containers from Honduras, Nicaragua, Kenya, and other countries.
We bought 500 grams each of two different types of coffee. We also got two espresso cups as souvenirs. It was a great experience and the coffee we had was excellent.
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| Long time employee in front of roaster |
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| Wood for roaster |
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| Francisco explaining the process |
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| Enjoying a coffee in the office |
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| Alain listening intently |
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| Roaster operating-- very warm in the room |
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| Stoking the furnace of the roaster |
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| Alain leaning on coffee bags |
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| Delivery car just up from the roaster |
After the great coffee experience, we headed to the Mercado. We bought some dorade from Maria Alice Alves- it was very helpful that Ann could speak to her in Portuguese. She did a great job of filleting our fish.
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| Cleaning our fish |
We also bought a zucchini, four tomatoes, six potatoes, an onion, six pears and a lettuce for 2.95 euros. The price of fruit and vegetables is unbelievable. Fish is a bit more pricey, but much less than in Toronto.
We stopped for a soup/or sandwich at one of the purveyors in the Time Out Market, which was very busy at lunch time.
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| Grace and Ann ordering lunch |
Alain had a bowl of fish soup. Ann and I had a bowl of pea soup, and Grace had a smoked salmon and cream cheese sandwich.
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| Fish soup |
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| Pea soup |
Ann had a pastel de nata (egg tart) at Manteigaria, our favourite place so far for this treat.
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| Ann at Manteigaria in the Time Out Market |
We then walked back to our apartment to rest. It had started to drizzle at about 3:00 p.m. so we decided to hang at the apartment. At about 6:30 p.m. we headed over to Ann's place to make dinner. We had the dorade, a potato, onion, tomato and zucchini dish, and a salad. A bit of wine and a few sweets topped of a very relaxing day. On Thursday, we head to Sintra, just outside Lisbon for the day.
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