Bolo de Arroz

I've recently been lucky enough to spend a few days in Lisbon. I already wrote a post 5 years ago about how lovely the city is. Lisbon is still booming, and that massive advantage over other gorgeous European cities that I mention in that post has not done but to increase, as France, Belgium, Germany... are each day more and more submerged by that kind of incompatible and hostile "culture" arrived from abroad and that hopefully is not ravaging Portugal yet. Also, the Left-wing and ecologist mindset in Portugal seems to be rather civilized (the way it was intended to be), far away from the ultra-violent Far-Left, Islamo-Left, Eco-Madness scum in France that propagate self-hatred, racialism and communitarism.
As for cities in Eastern Europe, the fact that they are more conservative is no longer something that bothers me particularly, but the pro-USA fanatism and servility to the fucking North American empire of countries like Poland, the Baltic ones and so on (and their senseless hatred for anything related to Russia) is something that now makes me have a really negative perception of them.

Unexpectedly, I'm not going to talk about architecture, about charming streets, beautiful view-points... but about something I think I rarely talk about in my blog, food!. I mentioned in that previous post that Portuguese sweets are pretty good, and coffee is absolutely delicious and cheap. That statement remains completely true. The most iconic Portuguese sweet, the Pastel de Belem/Pastel de Nata is really popular in I guess most of Europe (for example you have them in Lidl in France and Spain, and in Mercadona in Spain). Though the ones that you buy in a supermarket (the ones in a Portuguese supermarkets are basically the same than those in Lidl abroad) are years ahead from the ones that you can buy in Belem, right out of the oven, with a powdered sugar and a cinnamon sachet, they are still delicious. Portuguese people are very fond of their coffee and sweets, so there are cafetarias/pastelarias in every corner (they are so omnipresent as bars and cafes in Spain) and it's a very common tradition (respected also by the young generations) to go to them to have a coffee and a sweaet in the afternoons (and obviously for breakfast). From the beautiful assortment of sweets that you'll find in a "Pastelaria", there's one that I have rediscovered in this trip, the delicious Bolo de Arroz. Forget you English muffins, Bolo de Arroz plays in an upper level (the same level as French magdalenes). I used to eat them with breakfast in 2008 while working in Lisbon, but in later visits I seemed not to appreciate them so much, and now I think I know why. In those visits I had bought them in MiniPreco supermarkets (part of Spanish Dia chain). This trip I had a Pingo Doce supermarket very close to my hostel, and I bought them there (it has its own "patisserie", cooking stuff in place), the difference is huge, pretty huge, they are way better. I don't think there's any difference betwen these ones in Pingo Doce and those that you can buy in a street patisserie.

I can not talk about Lisbon without bringing up memories of that amazing vegan buffet that has become the icing on the cake in my visits to Lisbon, Jardim das Cerejas. Right in the center of Lisbon you find this small, cosy restaurant, with a neighbourhood feeling, where a buffet with a delicios veggie soup, salad and 4 main dishes along with 2 types of rice costs just 9.5 euros. Add it a freshly squeezed juice (you can mix apple, orange, carrot...) for just 2.5 euros. The food is absolutely delicious. Some of the dishes have a black sauce that I guess is a mix of soja sauce with something more, that has such an intense taste, buff...