Tag Archives: memorable eats

Memorable Eats: Pastéis de nata / Pastéis de Belém

If you’d told me two weeks ago that my knees would go weak over an egg tart pastry, I would have laughed.But after trying Portugal’s signature sweet, I think it was probably a good thing we chose to take a seat at a table instead of ordering from the outdoor counter service.

Pastéis de Belém – the volume of pastries was almost unbelievable!

I wasn’t sure what to expect when our Lisbon friend took us to try them. But a pastel de nata packs a lot of yum in a cute little package: a sweet, flaky pastry cup, filled with egg custard, and baked to perfection.

Pastéis de nata have been around since the 18th century. They were created by Portuguese monks, looking for a use for all of the egg yolks left over after they’d used egg whites to starch their laundry. And thus a Portuguese tradition was born. In 1837 the recipe was sold to a family whose descendants continue to run Lisbon’s Pastéis de Belém to this day.

A little cinnamon and powdered sugar on top, a light-roasted baca (a Portuguese espresso) on the side, and you have yourself the perfect afternoon treat.

We really enjoyed the fresh-made pastries at their original home, Pastéis de Belém in Lisbon, as well as those we had at local pastry shops in Porto.

 

Pastéis de Belém
R. Belém 84-92
1300-085 Lisboa, Portugal

Memorable Eats: Dutch Herring

Anytime we travel, we want to try at least one or two local foods. When we were in Amsterdam this year, we had a taste of several new things.The most memorable was probably the herring.

And not only was the fish memorable, but the photos we took are some I will likely never forget!

Here is the herring stand. They are very easy to find all over the city.

Here is the fish.

And while three of us really enjoyed it, I think you can see from this photo that it was not something Daniel cares to try again.

But he was a champ. Even though I thought he was possibly going to throw up, he managed to chew it up and swallow it!

 

Memorable Eats: The Familiar

It’s funny, the things that we get excited about when living overseas. Often it comes in the form of things we did not really indulge in when we lived in the states. But there is just something comforting about the familiar.Over the past couple of years, we’ve had several chances to enjoy some foods that gave us just a taste of our home country.

And sometimes that can provide just what you need to combat a bit of homesickness.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Memorable Eats: Hot Chocolate like you wouldn’t believe!

Sometimes as you travel, or maybe when you’re just taking a stroll around the corner, you come across interesting an usual food, or candies, or drinks. Occasionally they are off-the wall terrible, and then at other times they are great.In this first entry of a new blog series, Memorable Eats, I am sharing about something unusual that could probably fall into the categories of food. AND candies. AND drinks. Let me introduce you to drinkable chocolate.

If you are every in Poland, put this place on your must-see list: E. Wedel Chocolate Lounge

It is a restaurant. A confectionery.  A cafe. And so much more.

When we were visiting friends and colleagues in Warsaw, one of them mentioned stopping by a Wedel Cafe for hot chocolate. Sounded like a great idea to us!

And we are so glad we went. Merely calling the drink that Wedel serves a hot chocolate is doing it a real disservice. They call it drinking chocolate. And that is much more accurate.

I’ve had good hot chocolate in my life. Maybe even great every now and then. But what we had in Warsaw went way beyond that.

Wedel knows chocolate, and they excel when it comes to a drinkable chocolate. Drinking chocolate is much thicker than hot chocolate. It literally looks and tastes like someone took fine chocolate and melted it into a cup. Yeah, amazing.

There were so many varieties on the menu, so Zack and I decided to share the tasting trio. An excellent choice.

Three small cups of drinking chocolate: dessert, milk, and white chocolate. Each was delicious, but I think the dessert chocolate was our favorite!

We also shared the dessert tasting trio.

Another excellent choice, especially when there were so many delicious options. It would have been almost impossible to only choose one!

The boys enjoyed their drinking chocolate as well, complete with whipped cream and chocolate candies.

There are Wedel Chocolate bars throughout Poland – so if you are ever there, you definitely need to stop in!