Lisboa

OK, first I must say sorry to my loyal, select band of readers for my radio silence here. I'm afraid that I managed to lose my camera (three Ixys into the ether in three years...) and couldn't really face blogging without pictures, but in the spirit of hoping that the camera will turn up, I'm back. I'm not quite sure where this particular entry is going to go, but I thought I'd write about my food experiences in Lisbon, which I visited last week for a truly amazing EU meeting. Unfortunately the food was not quite so stellar and was not especially Portuguese, but who said that blogs needed to be full of tasty authenticity?

We were staying in a beach hotel just outside the city (truly 'tis a hard life) and most of the meals were eaten there, though we also went into town on a couple of occasions. Before going I had had quite a lot of high expectations of getting to to have some super local things - especially custard tarts - but I did also have a bit of a sense that this might be the kind of trip where being a vegetarian put one at something of a disadvantage. I was right about that as the welcome dinner at the hotel proved. It was a buffet and the dishes available were grated carrots, tomato wedges and a salsa-y pepper of peppers, onion and so on. The main course was the same... There were many cakes available for pudding and since I felt pretty bloody virtuous, I had carrot cake and lemon meringue pie. I'd also had the first two or three of what seemed like dozens of bread rolls I consumed over four days.

I was pretty excited about brekka as I had been led to believe that there might well be big selections of cakes and perhaps even the famous Lisbon custard tarts. No such luck, but there were quite a few types of pastry and also slices of cheese and tomato, so no grumbles from Gallois, particularly when he also found a local shop to stock up on Diet Cokes. Lunch continued the doubling up theme of the night before as the starter was melon with ham, or without ham in fact, followed by a main of... fruit salad, knocked back with a number of bread rolls. By this point some of the vegetarians were starting to revolt, but little did they know of the monster they were going to create: namely, the omelette monster, for no sooner was the word 'vegetarian' uttered in Hotel Costa Caparica than chef was cracking the eggs to whip up omelettes for the special ones.

That evening we went to a pretty smart restaurant called Vela Latina close to the Belem Tower by the Tagus River. The nibbles were slices of smoked salmon and cute looking slices of bread - huzzah, bread - but it turned out to be bread stuffed with some kind of chorizo... We negotiated a special starter, which was a pea soup whose dominant taste was chicken stock. Ho, hum, some real bread had arrived by this point. For the main we had pasta with ceps, asparagus and tomatoes: nae bad. Pudding was a lemon and vodka sorbet. William's extra pudding - once the senior academics paying for the whole shebang had left our table - was a custard tart, or rather a pasteis de belem, for the eponymous tart actually originated from the very district of Lisbon in which we sat. I had seen a big plate of them by the entrance to the restaurant and was determined to get my hands on one that night, for I knew there might not be another chance. It came with a shaker full of cinammon and was truly outstanding: plenty of crispy pastry and a big, big custardy flavour, slightly burnt on top and oh so creamy in the middle. It was washed down with some kind of vin santo - the two best things I had on the trip. The wines with the meal - a white Serras de Zeitao Vinho Regional Terras de Sado 2005 and an Alento Alentejo 2005 red - were also delicious. I particularly liked the fruity/rich balance in all the reds I tried.

I fear I have risked boring an audience more used to dinky little reports, so I shan't labour over the other lunches I had in the hotel which featured, amongst other things, a tower of cheap mozarella, tomato and dried oregano (nae bad), tagliatelli with a tomato sauce (hmmm, mine was warmer than the others') and spaghetti with a tomato and mushroom sauce (hmm). We than had a grand farewell dinner that featured a greatest hits rendition of all the vegetarian dishes the kitchen had learned to create, including, to great cheers from my table (but not from me), omelette, and one of the most bizarre dishes I have ever seen which consisted of bean sprouts and melted cheese: not a combo I can recommend. I got drunk and ignored most of the dishes and can recommed Super Bock beer. I can also praise Portuguese cheeses for I snuck out on the last day and bought some super local cheeses from a grocer's. While I may have seemed a bit snooty about the food in the hotel, in truth I didn't really care because the meeting wasn't about the food, and I'm really keen to go back to Portugal to drink wine, drink beer, eat cheese and have a custard tart every day that I'm there.