A lovely Sunday

Sunday, February 5, 2017

Sunny & Mild and two new restaurants

We seem to be eating our way around Lisbon. Today was sunny and mild after several days of rainy weather. So we decided to visit the Museu Nacional De Arte Antiga (National Museum of Antique Art). Before entering the museum we had lunch at Le Chat - a lovely little restaurant overlooking the docks and the River Tagus just outside the museum entrance. Much to our pleasant surprise, the food was excellent. I say surprise because so many times places like this with such a view and location offer at best mediocre food. But not Le Chat! We recommend it highly.

We also recommend this beautiful museum. We had visited it once before with Christy & Wayne LaGue, specifically to see the Hieronymus Bosch triptych, The Temptations of St. Anthony. Since that original visit the museum has been expanded -- beautifully I might add. Because of the expansion, many of the pieces in the collection that had been in storage can now be permanently displayed.  The museum has also used crowd funding to raise the money needed to acquire new paintings.

We enjoyed a quick coffee at a small bakery just up the hill from the museum with delicious scones. The owner, Eduardo, and his staff were friendly (as are most people in Portugal) and fun. We sorta promised to adopt a young woman who works there after she graduates from university in the UK. That's in three years. We'll see. Then we rode Tram 15 back home to rest before heading out for dinner at another new, to us, restaurant. Maria Catita is tucked in on a block just behind the Praca do Commercio and near the Hotel Turim. The surroundings are cozy and the cuisine is Azorean. We have learned to share entrees because the portions are so big. Tonight we shared a marinated pork and beans dish. Delicious.

BTW, the Portuguese phrase for a shared entree is "fazer a vaquinha" which translates into "to make a little cow." No one knows how that phrase was chosen to represent a shared dish.

We love living in a city! Just as we had hoped, we simply step outside and anything we might need or want is within a short walk or metro or tram ride.