The sweet side of Porto

Two weeks ago I took a little break from work and looked up the sun with my girlfriend in the north of Portugal. Porto was our destination and it didn't dissapiont us in any way. Porto is not a top destination and that's a good thing. Porto is an underdog, and I like that. The city stands in the shadows of big metropole citytrip destinations like Paris or london. But Porto is small and easy to go around by foot or by public transport, It has the most beautiful river views of any of the big city's I've ever been to, has amazing food and very underestimated wine and the best of all, everywhere you walk, you smell the port from the port caves who our spread out over the city.

We were staying at the recently build yeatman hotel. The hotel is owned by the port companies and build in the port caves district of Vila Nova De Gaia to promote Portwine and the history of Portuguese wine in general. The views from the hotel are breathtaking and the rooms were beautiful. But I'm not here to talk about that, I'm here to talk about the sweet stuff! To talk about the food, drinks, pastries, port wine,...and starting off we did with a tour in the caves of one of the oldest port companies...Offley port. The tour was short but amazing. I've learned a lot of things about port that I did not knew before and just running around in the caves were they keep the oak barrels was fantastic. After we had a small tasting and that was it.

Pastry wise it was a very interesting trip as well. Everyday we had our breakfast out of the hotel and went to the city in search of Portuguese breakfast, and I was quite surprised about the things we had. We had a portuguese croissant and some other danish pastries who maybe didn't look that great but they certainly tasted great. I tried for the first time ever the very tasteful "Queijadinhas" which is a pastry type of cake made of grated coconut, cheese, condensed milk, sugar, butter and eggyolk. Also we had the all-time classic portuguese custard tart "Pastel de Belém", which is one of my favourite.

For dinners we went to two fine dining restaurants. The first one we went to was Rui Paula in the centre of Porto. Rui Paula has not yet received a Michelin star but is highly recommended bye the guide, so I had to go and see what was that all about.

We had some beautiful starters and mains made with local products and I loved that. They didn't try and copy french fine dining at all, they just did what they wanted to do and they did it with local products. For example, I had a starter of Samosa filled with Portuguese alheira sausage, with glazed mushrooms, thym and port wine reduction. It looked great, it smelled great and it tasted even better.

So after all the good food I asked our friendly waitress if it was possible to get a pastry tasting since I'm a pastry chef and I would like to taste a bit of everything. Lucky for us it was not a problem, but as soon as she passed on the message to the chef, he promptly stepped out of his kitchen and came to visit us, which was nice for once but not the three times after when he did it while we were eating. Anyways, I got the dessert tasting that I asked for so for starters we got a little spoon with a nice white sphere on it, covered in popping candy, our waitress told us that it was the raspberry explosion, we had to eat it at once, so that's what we did. In your mouth the chocolate melts, the popping candy does it's work and the raspberry water comes free. My girlfriend loved it, but I assume it was her love for popping candy that took over for from her, because I did not think it was that special but the sphere was filled with cold raspberry water which was refreshing, so the pre dessert did it's job.

Second was a rather disappointed looking Rice crème brulée with strawberry coulis, strawberry juice and cinnamon ice cream. Flavours matched together, the ice cream was nice, but that was it. I never had a rice crème brulee before though, so that was an interesting first time for me.

third up was something I liked a lot more. Just like the dishes in the restaurant this one was made out of local products. It was a Goats cheese samosa with Portuguese cottage cheese, pumpkin jelly and honey ice cream. It was a playful dessert , It was hot and cold, It was contrast of salty and sweet, It had a crunch to it from the samosa and had the rich flavours of the goats cheese and cottage cheese. although it was quite heavy to eat, I loved it!

Last dessert was of course a chocolate one. And funny enough also locally inspired, but less well executed the our previous dessert. We got a crunchy chocolate tart with port reduction, port foam and port ice cream. But it sounded great but the flavours were not there. I hardly tasted any port wine and the crispy bottom of the tart was way to thick. but overall restaurant Rui Paula was a very good restaurant. We had a good meal and a very pleasant night, So thumbs up to that one.

The day after we had dinner at the Yeatman restaurant in our hotel. It's the only restaurant which boosts a Michelin star in the city of Porto, so the expectations were higher then yesterday. It was a Sunday evening so there were not a lot of bookings so the atmosphere was far from what it was at Rui Paula the day before, but I'm sure on a Saturday they would be full as well so we don't let that get to us. Any ways, from our table we have a beautiful view of the river Douro and it's skyline of Porto were the lights are starting to shine while the sun is disappearing behind the mountains, so no need to complain.

You can notice that they have a star to live up to since the service is more formal, a bit to stiff I would say. Just like yesterday we had nice starters and mains, but it was more classic and less influenced bye Portuegese cuisine. I had some nice wayu beef with fois gras and some lamb cutlets with an olive crust. Again I've asked for a dessert tasting, and it was no problem.First up was a chocolate dome filled with mandarin mousse, salty caramelised walnuts and mandarin sorbet. I did not like the plating but the taste was very good, it was refreshing, and the acidity worked well with the crunchy salted walnuts, so it was a winner.

Second was a Crème brulée tart with caramel foam, caramelized almonds and toasted almond ice cream. It looked ok, but tasted great. The toasted almond ice cream was seriously one of the best ice creams I had in a long time. It was a very well balanced dessert, and the smile on my girlfriends face makes me assume she agreed with my point of view.

Third up was fried pumpkin cake with frozen pumpkin, yoghurt foam and yoghurt ice cream. I was very excited about this one because It brought me straight back to the goats cheese samosa with pumpkin that I had last night. Again the hot and cold, again the sweet and salty part, mixed with the acidity and freshness from the yoghurt. And it was good, it really was, but is was not nearly as good as what I had the day before at Rui Paula. It was a bit to salty and the fried pumpkincake was very greasy.

The last one up was probably the best dessert I had in Porto. We both got our plate, and there was a nice medium sized quenelle of coconut ice cream on the plate, decorated with a little crunchy tuile and some mint. We were told to wait for the second part, which we did, until they came with a small coper saucepan filled with cooked rhubarb covered with burned meringue and suddenly I got all exited. this had to be amazing, and it was. The rhubarb was nice lukewarm, the soft meringue, the coconut flavour. It all matched beautifully together.

Happy that I finished the dinner on a high note, there came an other surprise. The head waiter invited us to go see the chef and the kitchen. they had a beautiful kitchen full of bright colours and large windows to let in the natural light. We had a nice talk with the chef and he gave us a tour of all the sections within the hotel and restaurant kitchen. That was all the food related stuff I can tell you about Porto, the holiday was over. One more night in our very very comfortable bed and then we were back on our way to cold London. life is not fair sometimes, but we live it. and while you are living your life, try to go and visit Porto, cause its well worth it, trust me.