FLIGHT OF THE PHOENIX: Lazing In Lisbon

My dearest lungs. Please get well soon.

For no apparent reason, my asthma decided to play up today. Making uphill walks somewhat of a challenge. Thus today turned into a rest day. Lara was ecstatic with her purchases from Zara which was conveniently across the road. Elliot managed to get his haircut at one of the oldest barbers in Europe. Jonah got to catch up on his Netflix series and Malcolm was free to roam the streets in search of unusual finds. The parentals were glad for the opportunity to shop. Everyone was happy.

A Taberna Do Mar...

It had fantastic reviews and was touted to be one of the top ten restaurants in Lisbon. In our heads, we were expecting Portuguese Japanese fusion. The reality didn't quite match. We opted for the 10 course degustation, excited to sample the work of "innovative" chef Phillipe Rodriguez. A major problem for us was that we all went there with images of Japanese seafood with Portuguese spices in our heads. The reality was that it was much more heavily based on old school Portuguese ingredients and flavours with Japanese aesthetics. For lovers of sardines, mackerels and other "fishy" oily fish this would be amazing. For us it became somewhat of a challenge. The dishes were certainly spectacular and you could see the imagination and work that went into them. It was just hard to get some of them into us. The staff, the service and the setting were wonderful. It was never pretentious. Some of the dishes we desperately wanted to enjoy as it was based on his grandmother's recipes and he was so nice! We were gifted with 3 extra dessert dishes to end with which was lovely. However one of them was a sardine flavoured custard...