Time Out Mercado da Ribeira

Last week was my elder sister's last weekend here in Portugal before she went back to University, so we made a family weekend out of it. We had amazing breakfast together, we went to the beach, visited friends, and we also watched old family home videos. For the last dinner on Sunday we wanted to go to a good restaurant and so we went to a place which is one of the best places I have ever been to. It is the Time Out Mercado da Ribeira in Lisbon. This big hall used to be a fish market (from the 13th century) and now it is like a big restaurant or stylish food court which has Lisbon's favourite food shops and restaurants.

When you walk in there is a big bright open space full of people (especially on the weekends). The outlook of the shops and restaurants have the same style, but they all have different food and drinks. You can walk around and look at all the open kitchens of the different stalls, and see, smell and experience all kinds of Portuguese specialities.

It is really hard to choose from all of the lovely looking food, but whatever you pick you can't go wrong.

Soup:

There is this fantastic soup place where every day there are 4 or 5 soups that you can choose from. We tasted a mushroom (with cheese and toasted onions), a mango (with almond) and a pepper soup(with toasted bread and bacon). All of them were amazing, but out of the three soups the mango was the best, because it was just the perfect combination of sweet and salty. Also I loved the titles of the soup containers. :) 

Mushroom soup

Mango soup

Pepper soup

Main cours:

For the main cours we decided to choose from various places. My older sister had pork (from the Alentejo region) with mashed potatoes, cabbage and bacon. I have never eaten pork that was so soft and heavenly and the bacon was just perfect with the cabbage. This dish was my favourite out of all. My mom decided to order a portuguese Bacalhau com natas which is an oven-baked dish made out of layers of fish (bacalhau), onions, potatoes and cream. My younger sister likes to keep it simple so she had a cheeseburger with fries. It is so simple but they managed to make something so mainstream so delicious. My dad ordered something more adventurous a Ceviche made from fish. :) It is made of raw fish with mango and some tortilla chips and salad on top. I tried the bruschetta wich was also very tasty. We shared all the food and tried everything we ordered and everyone agreed that the pork was the best of all.

Pork with mashed potatoes, cabbage and bacon.

Bacalhau com natas

Cheeseburger with fries

Ceviche

 Bruschetta

Dessert: 

We ate a lot of different food and so by the time we got to dessert we were full, but we couldn't miss out on the best ice cream. Santini has the best ice cream I have ever had. I always recommend it to people to try this place when they come to Portugal and nobody has ever regretted tasting it. I decided to have mango and raspberry and they were amazing, because they both tasted just like the actual fruit. My older sister had peanut and cantaloupe and my younger sister asked for a pancake with two scoops of ice cream on top (chocolate and chocolate chips).

We also tasted some macarons from another shop and we tried the peppermint, the chocolate and the coffe.

We had a blast, we laughed a lot and ate a lot and it was just great.I just loved everything about this place, the design, the food, the atmosphere the idea and the concept of it. I know that this wasn't the last time I went to Time Out Mercado da Ribeira.

A little father daughter arm wrestling

When you find out you are going to eat ice cream at Santini

I hope you've enjoyed this post and feel free to comment here on the blog, on facebook, on instagram, or on twitter. Have a lovely sunday! :) 

instagram: @breakfast_at_katas

twitter: @breatkatas

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Cream soup with Hungarian galuska

The last few weeks had been rainy and cold here in Portugal. You can really feel that autumn is here and winter is coming. These days I just want to stay at home, lay on the couch with a comfy blanket, watch a movie and eat a hot soup. I adore cream soups whether it is tomato, mushroom or zucchini. Most often I like to make zucchini cream soupe with Hungarian galuska. It is perfect for this weather and the galuska makes it even better. My grandmother started making this soup for me and my family when I was small, and so this was one of the recipes she taught me when I started cooking. 

On cold winter days I recommend you to try this recipe and I promise it'll definitely warm you up. 

INGREDIENTS:

Soupe:

2 zucchinis

2 medium sized potatoes
1 onion

salt and pepper

3-4 tablespoons of cream fresh or cream (tejföl)

4 cups of water

Galuska:

1 egg

50g of butter

5 tablespoons of flour

pinch of salt  

We are going to start by making the galuska. Take a bowl and put in the egg, butter, flour and a pinch of salt. Mix that well and set it aside.

Chop up the zucchinies, potatoes and the onion. Grab a big pot and heat up (medium to high heat) some oil and fry your onions for 2 minutes. Add the potatoes and fry them for another 2-3 minutes and then add the zucchini and let it soften for about 2 minutes while steering constantly (don't forget to season your vegetables with salt and pepper). Pour in 4 glasses of water (if later on, you feel like your soup is too thick then add more water) and let it cook for about 30 minutes (until the potatoes are cooked and softened). Get a blender and blend the vegetables and the water together. You should get a creamy consistency. Then taste it and if you need to, then put more salt and pepper.  Put 3-4 tablespoons of cream fresh in the soup, stir it well, and put it up on a high heat. When it starts to boil then start adding the galuska batter into the soup with a teaspoon. Let the soup cook for another 2 minutes and you are ready to serve.

If you decide to give this tasty cream soup a try then make sure to write a comment or take a picture of it and upload it to instagram or twitter and also don't forget to tag me in the photo .(instagram: @breakfast_at_katas , twitter: @breatkatas)