the things we ate

Last month we spent three days in Porto. These are the things we ate.

The monstrous Francesinha, the first thing we ate on arrival and was important to eat but will never eat again. A “sandwich” filled with multiple types of meat, coated in cheese and drowned in an oily gravy. We recovered from this with a very long nap followed by salty fried jalapenos and caipirinhas from a waiter keen to recommend jazz in the north and Fado in the south and not to acknowledge the nuances of gender.

Several attempts at salt-cod fritters. Soft and patty-like at 10pm on our first night; crisp and dipped in olive tapinade by the river in late afternoon sunlight; a perfect textural middle ground down an alleyway on our final night.

A flight of different coffees from a cafe tucked into a crumbling building in the city centre. Upstairs is a sprawling exhibition of farmers holding their animals and various vegetables with dirt-filled nails and expressions of pure love.

We cycle to the sea where towering waves crash against the rocks and since we’re absolutely not going into that we eat toasted sandwiches and drink cold beers and have affogatos with banagrams and the roar of the ocean. Later we eat a cheescake disguised as a pot plant on the cobblestones of Porto’s oldest street, biscuit crumble as soil and a mint leaf as tiny seedling. Next to us a woman dines alone, doesn’t finish her fish stew and orders two desserts. Feels very aspirational.

Hot coffees and iced tea in the sun with a sweeping view over the city. Soft and creamy pasta de natas with tiny heaps of cinnamon from paper packets. We watch the chefs stirring vats of custard filling and passing pastry back and forth through a flattening contraption, the smell of dairy and spice blunted by what we’d later realise was the onset of COVID. Sweet port from cavernous barrels above a musty and oddly romantic cellar, marking our preferences on a napkin and stumbling out of the dark into golden hour.

A feast in a restaurant tucked away down a narrow sidestreet, calming and heart-rate slowing after an unlit walk through winding alleys thinking about nuclear alerts. Alheira, a long and surprisingly delicious breaded sausage, prawns that arrive aflame in a spicy sauce, wine plucked from the shelves above our heads and uncorked on the way down, fried potatoes and salty fish and a perfect evening untouched even by the British woman at the table next to us forcing conversation upon the polite Floridans celebrating their 40th anniversary on her other side.

The bus to the big gallery on our final morning, laughing deliriously at Google-translated reviews for restaurants nearby (“nails to eat and cry for more. I recommend the nails and the bleeding”). Sandwiches and sangria in a tiny tiled diner, fingers greasy with home-fried crisps, 3 hours til our flight and feeling catastrophic with hangover-disguised COVID.

An airport snack of nothing I can remember and a half-asleep plane home and a week’s worth of meals delivered to outside my tiny bedroom’s door.