Monastery & Dinner to Die For!

We started out this morning with a nice breakfast at a pastry shop. I had a cheese and ham sandwich and everyone else had toast with butter. You are probably saying what is so special about toast and butter. Well Shirley was told that Portugal toast and butter (Torrada con menteiga) was fantastic. So they tried it. They thought it was wonderful. Well that’s what they say. I had a sandwich which was very good. Anyway back to the sightseeing. After breakfast we took a bus to Belem which was 35 min away from the bus station. We first visited Tower of Belem it was built in 1520 and is the most ornate Fort / gun emplacement that I have ever seen. After that we had lunch at this cafeteria that was about a quarter mile from the tower. For a cafeteria we thought the food was great! I forgot to mention in my previous blog entries that ever since we got here we have been seeing tons of Harley Davidson Motorcycles all over the place. They are having a Harley Owners Get together here in Lisbon. So we have seen Owners groups from all over the European Union. Anyway back to our sightseeing. The next place we went to was the monastery of Jeronimos. The monastery was built in 1502 – 1517. Absolutely fantastic! This monastery is so ornate everywhere you look was carved ach ways and incredible tombs. One of the tombs we saw was the tomb of Vasco da Gama. The architecture of the main church was absolutely breathtaking. We ventured back to the apartment to get ready for dinner. Now for dinner I want to warn you now the description of the meal will make your mouth water. We had our reservation for 8:30pm at Belcanto’s, we meandered down to the restaurant and found the door locked. We knocked on the door and a woman opened the door and asked if we had reservations. Fortunately we had made reservation before we arrived in Lisbon. So she let us in. This restaurant is one of the best restaurants in Portugal. It’s very formal and the food was some of the best food we have ever had!

Starter:

Sparkling Rose wine from Potugal.
Bread (Mini baguette, Black Poppy seed Roll, Olive Roll) with the bread we had 3 types of butter (Azores Butter, Butter with Sea Salt, Butter with Hazelnut)

Amuse Bouches (Mouth Teaser):

Tempura pitted olive & Molecular Gastronomy olive juice presented is a sphere both on small olive wood log served in small silver spoons.
Inverse Martini Sphere of gin held in olive juice
Gazpacho with raw shrimp and one stem of coriander presented in a blue bowl which represented the crest of a wave.
Chick pea “chips” – one chick pea encased in a sphere plus cod fish.

Main Meals:

Anne and I had the Double boiled (cooked) Lamb two ways with baby carrots with two different sauces – potato puree and lamb based carrot reduction
CJ had the Skate (Jackson Pollack) – presented with a cork rectangle painted like a Jackson Pollack painting – the skate was on a flatter plate with 5 or 6 different sauces artistically strewn over the skate.
Shirley had the Sea Bass (Mediterranean sea bass) – topped with purple and green seaweed and Belcanto’s version of pasta del nadat – millefeuille pastry layered with custard, and cinnamon ice cream for dessert.
We also had after dinner drinks of Madera’s and ports including a wonderful cheese plate that had cheese from all over Portugal.

After that wonderful meal we went back to the apartment for the night.

Tower of Belem

Some detail of the tower.

Monastery of  Jeronimos in Belem

Tomb of Navigator Vasco da Gama