Travel Tuesdays #4 - Belém, Lisboa, Portugal.

A pastel de nata or pastel de Belém, as I've alluded to, is a Portuguese egg tart or pastry. They are common in Portugal (duh), and places like Brazil (bet you didn't know that Brazil is the only Portuguese-speaking country in the whole of South America, didn't you?). Closer to Asia, it's particularly popular in Macau, which as we all know, was a Portuguese colony. This then spread to Hong Kong, which is just an hour ferry ride away and of course down to Singapore and Malaysia. I'm sorry to inform you guys however, that even the best egg tarts I had in Macau, which were pretty dang good (whose name I can't remember since the tour guide brought me there), are beaten hands down by the pastel de nata made in the Belém bakery, in Lisbon. 

Egg tarts are a common sight in Lisbon. They may look black and unappetizing, but they're goooddd.

For those who have visited Lisbon (or Lisboa) before, you'll realize that the area of Belém is a totally different creature from the rest of Lisbon city. I know Portuguese people (who are really nationalistic) will kill me for saying this, but it does remind me of the Albayzín area in Granada - hilly, with buildings with higgledy piggledy rooftops (which are incidentally in lovely shades of tan) and lovely shaded and cooling alleyways. [I'm a tad lazy to post more photos of the area since I'm lazy to do the necessary editing, so I'll leave it for another post.] Anyway, it was believed that the Catholic nuns from the Jerónimos Monastery in Belém created these tarts, and the first place to sell these tarts (since the nuns weren't supposed to sell them and the monastery sadly closed in the 19th century) was the Casa Pastéis de Belém. Now, they are being sold by the dozens in Antiga Confeitaria de Belem. Actually, it should be being sold by the hundreds or thousands, because there is always a queue outside the place. The tourists come by the busloads literally - tour buses stop them outside the place so that they can take a tea break and devour the tarts! You can eat in (which I did), or you can takeaway, in those distinctive hexagonal boxes (which I did, as well). In fact, they were so yummy that my friends and I tapao-ed a dozen of them to munch on for the rest of the day.

I didn't get a picture of the inside, but do check out Heather's blog post here to have a look of the inside - even her pictures don't show it, but the place is HUGE. It's basically like a cavern (imagine Batman's Batcave) and hemispherical ceilings and the place just goes on and on inside - the walk to the toilet is like 5 minutes away! Okay I exaggerate but you get what I mean. The walls are tiled with the distinctive blue tiles, which I term a Portuguese blue, since it's found everywhere around the city, and of course, there's the distinctive Portuguese rooster on some of those tiles. If you're curious, just google Galo de Barcelos to understand why the rooster is so prevalent in Portuguese culture - and Portuguese make real good peri-peri chicken! In fact Nando's originated from Portugal, if you didn't know =p


Even the takeaway boxes are in the distinctive blue and white, and each box states that this place has been making them Pastéis de Belém since 1837! That's 174 years - holyschmoly! A place that has made egg tarts for that long must be damn good, and yes they are. Period. They have a website, and you can see how the inside and outside of the shop looks like. They even had a short video of how the tarts are made. Each table has a cinnamon and icing sugar shaker, which you can use to top your tart, but seriously, only do it after you've taken a bite of the original. The tarts come out fresh by the dozens from the oven, so do try to get those - a bite into each is like a bite of custard heaven! Like I mentioned in my egg tart post here, the pastry is actually made of puff pastry and not normal tart dough, so it is a little oily and after popping like three of them, I did get a little gelat; BUT it was nevertheless still the best thing I've ever eaten. The custard is smooth and silky, with just the right amount of eggyness and the puff pastry acts as a perfect foil to the custard because it's just so flaky and buttery. Paradise in your mouth, as my Polish friend would put it. Most importantly, they never sell the tarts cool or lukewarm (since all of them get sold out anyway) so every tart is kept warm in the oven if you're eating in. If you're taking it away, they take the tarts which are cooling on the counter so that it doesn't burn through the box. How's that for thoughtfulness? I don't remember exactly how much they cost, but I recall them not being cheap for their size (they're pretty small), so probably around 1,50 - 2 euros?

PS: Europeans use a comma instead of a full stop to separate dollars and cents, so it's not a typo ;] As you can see in my photo, they do sell other Portuguese desserts, but I honestly can't remember their names, even though they were quite delicious, they paled in comparison to the tarts. 

The yummylicious egg tarts (plus some more to-go) and other sweet treats whose names I don't remember >.<

So long story short, if you ever plan a trip to Portugal, please please please do not leave out Lisbon, or Belém for that matter, because it's worth a trip there. Plus, you can take the cute little red trams that Portugal has running around the city. #15 goes to Belém in particular =]