Tag Archives: porto

Gluten free Porto, Portugal

In general, I found very little about specific gluten free restaurants in Porto or restaurants with gluten free menus. For this trip, I focused on the restaurant card and explaining what I could not eat, which was fine with the Mediterranean influenced and heavy seafood diet in Portugal.

These weekend trips are getting a little expensive, so I tried to keep costs low by booking Jualis Guest House. Our supposed room was overbooked, so we ended up being placed in what seemed like a studio apartment from the owners that faced the street and was pretty noisy, but at 30€ a night, we were not complaining. The staff were all really helpful and nice as well.

Mainly though, I booked because I had read a review that they could give you gluten free bread at breakfast and that is the one meal that I do not want to worry about on a trip. After some confusion asking them to confirm this via email beforehand, they did say they could provide gluten free bread and sure enough, I received special gluten free rolls heated up just for me in the morning. They would even ask what time we would come for breakfast so that I didn’t have to wait. Kay was a little jealous because his bread was cold and it was hard to warm ourselves up eating on the patio in the cooler weather.Still wanting a nicer coffee, we stopped at Café Moustache, where I ordered gluten free cake along with my cappucino just because they had it.For lunch, I was adventurous and agreed to eat at a local diner at Largo São Domingos 23, which I couldn’t get a picture of the restaurant name, but we dropped down that dark scaffolding area in the photo below and went to the restaurant with the red door.It had a 100% Portuguese menu and we decided to order some wine with lunch before our port winery tour. Not the best place for wine though unfortunately…I was really enjoying starting to read and understand things in Portuguese. There is still a ton to learn, but I already feel like I can communicate a tiny, tiny bit better. While Kay ordered a typical Francesinha dish, I ordered fish, which they just battered in egg instead of flour as well.We had to scramble a bit to get to Ferreira cellars on time. The tour of the cellars was very brief and then it was time for the degustation. Most of the 50 person group were only trying the 2 ports included in the standard price.

Only our table with two other couples were trying 5 different kinds.It was a bit of a disappointing degustation because all the port was too quickly explained and then the guide took the bottles away with the labels and left, so we had no reference besides our quick retention skills to talk about what we were supposed to be tasting.It was a shame because they even had the glasses set up on sheets with space for writing, so they could have easily written down what we were drinking.

Lastly, there was no water or anything to snack on to clear your palette between sips. All in all, not the best degustation we’d ever been to, but we still enjoyed the port with our limited introduction. 🙂We did get to sample a 20 year old tawny (if I have that right) as well as another LBV. I of course liked the most expensive one the best. 🙂After the port, we were a little tipsy and tried to wake ourselves up with a coffee on the walk back to the bridge. Mine had a wonderful sweet cinnamon touch.After coffee we wandered around aimlessly wondering what to do. Museums were closed, but it was not yet time for dinner and without my usual gluten free selection guide, we were again lost as we normally were on city trips pre-celiac disease.

Finally we decided to stop at the seemingly super touristy Majestic Cafe, because we were tired and a little hungry and just did not care about the extra price. Like the Livraria Lello & Irmão bookstore, apparently Cafe Majestic is said to be where JK Rowling started one of her first drafts of Harry Potter.It ended up being a pretty nice restaurant. Sure, the prices were a little more expensive than other places, but Kay thought the melon above was to die for and the restaurant was knowledgeable enough about gluten to make a special gluten free port sauce for my duck.We also decided to sample another brand of port to help us with our decision of what to purchase at the end. Knowing we liked both the 20 year tawny and LBV from Ferreira, we tried the same from Graham’s and decided we liked both of them much more than the Ferreira stuff. The 20 year tawny was the better of the two and had a nice long and complex finish.The next day we got up for breakfast again before checking out and finding that the sun was starting to peek out. We stopped for a fresh juice and coffee before tackling our day.I had actually asked, albeit with very short notice, if there was room for dinner reservations for two at The Yeatman’s Michelin-starred restaurant for Saturday evening and unfortunately there were not, so I was excited when I asked about Sunday lunch and they confirmed my reservation.

Kay, on the other hand, almost wanted to cancel the lunch reservations because he didn’t feel like “dressing up” in his business shirt and getting all sweaty the next morning climbing the tower certainly didn’t help.

But shortly after sprucing ourselves up and being seated with a port aperitif and the view below from our table, Kay was sure that this was the absolute best decision of the weekend.And it was. This meal made up for all the missed anniversaries this year. We hadn’t gotten around to eating somewhere amazing and this place really spoiled us. They altered everything to be gluten free for me if necessary.Chef’s greetings with lobster and caviar on a macaroon base and avocado cream on what I think was a shrimp kind of cracker for me and a corn tortilla cracker for Kay.

Below, micro carrots.Next was a refreshing gazpacho and molecular mozzarella to the right, paired with a white wine. I was terrible and forgot to get any of the wine names.Below was a crispy salmon fillet sandwich with wasabi mayonnaise.Sea bass, crustaceans & coconut served in a halved coconut.Below then codfish swim bladder and bean stew, codfish fillet and codfish sauce. This one tasted nice and hearty, like preparing for winter.The main was grilled and glazed sirloin, chanterelle mushrooms and barbecue sauce & oxtail stew. I think below is the oxtail stew and the next photo is the sirloin with mushrooms.Ah, heaven!!They also served Kay seaweed bread and another kind, while I enjoyed a nice light and fluffy gluten free bread with soft butter and olive oil.The “pre dessert” was some kind of chocolate mousse over nuts. Kay’s probably had some gluten cookie underneath which they just replaced with nuts for me.Actual dessert was green tea cream with lime merengue, tonka bean ice cream and iced tea.Here was the iced tea. Funny serving. We were marveling at the interesting dishes for presenting food. Some of the plates were quite large and voluminous.After dinner we received a selection of macaroons and chocolates. I left the crackery bits to Kay.After dessert, we decided to try some more port again, so we splurged a bit and chose an LBV from 2010 and a 1976 vintage from Krohn.I am not sure we could decide which one of these we liked better, but we made sure to look for something similar in the duty free section at the airport. Of course everything is more mainstream in the airport, but we had carry-on only and didn’t want to invest in shipping something home.In the end we settled on Graham’s 20 year tawny, a white port from Graham’s, a 1998 Krohn vintage, and a Borges Porto 2010 LBV.Now that we know more about port from our tour, we also know that it’s also important to drink a bottle in a timely fashion. Kay and I were both under the impression that you can leave port open like liquor and it will taste fine, but after a quick test at home, Kay feels that our old standby tastes like vinegar compared to the ones above.

We were happy to get a nice little collection to enjoy and savour properly based on our tastings. Overall, we had a very enjoyable food and dining experience in Porto. I highly recommend The Yeatman’s restaurant if you are in town!

Porto, Portugal

Kay has wanted to go to Porto for ages, so every time I searched for weekend trips, I always kept an eye on flights heading there. Usually prices to Portugal from Zurich are too expensive, nearing 500CHF a ticket, but finally I found affordable tickets for late September, booking a short Friday evening to Sunday evening trip.

In order to keep the flights cheap, we did need to transfer in Frankfurt on the way there, which ended up being horrible because our flight from Zurich was delayed and we ended up having to sprint through almost the whole airport in Frankfurt to get to our connecting gate. I nearly died and after the time difference (1 hour) we didn’t arrive to our bed and breakfast until almost one in the morning Swiss time.The weather was covered on Saturday and we had hopes that it would open up, but it remained foggy and grey. Still, we made our way around markets and walked around the city until it was time for our port cellar tour at Ferreira.

With the weather still cloudy, we made a stop at Lello & Irmão Bookstore,  a famous bookstore considered to be one of the most beautiful in the world.…and it was pretty darn magnificent.It is rumored that JK Rowling was inspired to start writing Harry Potter in connection to this bookstore. Who knows if that’s true?The unique staircase is also thought to be an inspiration to ones described in the Harry Potter books.Next it was on to a couple churches.We were a little sad that the weather was so gloomy, but you can’t always be lucky with the weather on these short trips. Well, or our long ones either. We actually seem to do better weather wise on weekend trips compared to proper two week holidays…The port winery tour at Ferreira was OK, but I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it. The tour guide was alright and the information was good, but it was a large group and the tour was a bit rushed before we were all dropped at the end to try our port selections.After a very quick introduction to our five selections, the guide took the bottles away and left and we were left trying to remember which port was which within our little group doing the larger degustation. We still had a nice time, but next time we will try a different winery just because! 🙂

After the port, we were rather tipsy and tired and the weather was not doing much to energize us. The day ended with weather like below…We ended up walking around for quite a bit looking for a place to eat that inspired us.At least the city looked nicer at night when it was lit up.The next morning though, the sun was out and we were enthused!After breakfast we stopped for a better coffee and Kay was really excited when the sky opened up completely with sunshine and warmth.Who is excited about the day and wants to do everything we skipped on Saturday?? This guy!We decided to head back to the Clérigos Tower and actually climb it this time. It hadn’t seemed worth it the day before, but below was exactly how we imagined Porto!It was a bit funny though. I’d made Kay wear his dress shirt on Sunday because I made lunch reservations at The Yeatman Hotel, a five star hotel with a Michelin-starred restaurant. The dress code was “smart casual” and we were both worried that we would be turned away in our jeans.

Well, climbing up the tower without an undershirt under his dress shirt completely soaked Kay. It looked really horrible and I couldn’t help laughing. Before we left the church, he changed back to his T-shirt and we tied his dress shirt to his backpack to try and dry it out before arriving at the restaurant.

Wearing just a sweaty tank top myself, I put on a light long sleeved top in front of the hotel while Kay put his dried dress shirt back on over the T-shirt. It ended up being fine for lunch and we managed to fit in all right.Above was our view from the table at lunch. The entire experience was pure heaven! Me and my handsome man. 🙂After a very long lunch, we made our way back down to the river.We didn’t have that much time before we needed to get to the airport for our flight, but we soaked in a couple more sights.We were also pretty full of food and port by this time!At the airport it was important to buy some port based on what we’d sampled in the winery and restaurants. We had some good advice and decided to pick up four different kinds which I’ll mention in the food post soon.Oh Porto. You tired me out. Our flight back was also delayed, although we didn’t have to transfer on the way home, we also only arrived home after midnight. It’s making for a tired week, but worth it to enjoy these last weekends with Kay before school.

Only five weekends for Kay at home before he’s off to study!

Weekend Trips Continued

Like I mentioned in March, we had several short trips planned this year, which is only growing as the year progresses. I am on fire with the cheap airfare.

Athens:

(Picture via Flickr Creative Commons)

This year Swiss labor day falls on a Friday, so I really wanted to take a long weekend somewhere. For a long time, I only found flights for 400CHF or more, but finally a few weeks before the weekend, I caught tickets to Athens for a good price. I’m really looking forward to visiting Greece for the first time this weekend! Kay has already been before, it’s where he met my design friend who introduced us, but I’m looking forward to a relaxed weekend exploring this old city!

Helsinki:

(Picture via Flickr Creative Commons)

The same day I found tickets to Athens, I found tickets for another long weekend in May to Helsinki. We always get Pentecost Monday off, so we’ll head north that weekend for another long trip. We’ve already been to Sweden, Norway and Denmark, so this rounds out our Scandinavian countries.

Now we’ll just need to visit Iceland and see the northern lights somewhere at some point.

Luxembourg:

(Picture via Flickr Creative Commons)

Keeping an eye out for weekend trips for our birthday weekends, I decided to go ahead and book tickets to Luxembourg for my birthday weekend. We don’t have any public holidays then, but the flights are early and Luxembourg is small enough that I think we will see enough.

I’m not sure why, but I was always sort of interested to visit Luxembourg because it’s one of those really small European countries nearby. Usually the tickets flying there are 450-500, but I actually found them for around 200, so I figured it was worth going.

Porto:

 

(Picture via Flickr Creative Commons)

Porto is another city that Kay has had on his list for ages for whatever reason, but the tickets are usually always almost 500CHF. I’ve been checking since January and finally found a weekend this year where the tickets are 250 and we are both here, so off we go!

Our calendar is starting to fill up and I’ve realised that we haven’t even booked any “real” holidays yet. I need to make sure we have enough money for that too with all this weekend traveling! We are also starting to be pros at weekend travel and have really streamlined our packing.

Now, off to Athens today!