This week I had the opportunity to travel to Lisbon, which is the capital city of the country of Portugal. After a two hour flight from Paris to Portugal, I arrived in a country where its proximity to the sea and exquisite taste have created a cuisine filled with seafood and delicious pastries. Here, the food and its quality resemble the warmth and love of its people, creating a very unique culinary destination.
Even though I'm usually not a fan of seafood, I recently tried one of the best dishes I've had while in Portugal. It was crab meat purée, which is crab meat blended up so it's creamy and smooth, served in the crab's actual shell. It had a very fresh taste and really impressed me.
Portugal is famous for a specific pastry called Pasteis de Belém. In English, they're called Belém pastries. They are basically a tart with a sweet egg purée. I fell in love with these little tarts the moment I tried them and was eating them all throughout my stay.
I was pretty scared to try these new dishes at first but, once I did, I could not stop eating them. Not only did I discover that I liked these types of foods, but I also felt I learned a little more of the Portuguese culture just by tasting them.
