Must-try Porto sandwich

After a late lunch of tripe stew, for dinner we hunted down a restaurant serving francesinha, a specialty of Porto. There are lots of restaurants that serve this; we just had to decide which one, because some are more cheesy, some are more meaty, etc. We opted for Churrasqueira Moura because it was not too far away, and the photos and reviews looked decent. 

(Note: A “churrasqueira” is actually a grill house. The photos of their grilled meat looked awesome…but unfortunately we didn’t have enough stomach space for them…and trying francesinha was a must!)

We ordered a single-person portion to share, even though there was a double-portion for sharing. The waiter told us that it wasn’t big. He was quite chatty; after it arrived, he came back to ask us, “It’s small, right?” And we said it was big, haha. After that we ordered dessert so that it wouldn’t look too bad that we only ordered such a “small” portion. :P

menu cover

We ordered a jug of house wine, which was about 300ml (I think) but quite cheap. Unfortunately it didn't taste very good.

we poured it ourselves; there's more left in the jar!

the francesinha

The sandwich (my friend Eduard calls it a "cholesterol sandwich", probably because of all the meats inside) is served with fries. I think that if it had only half the fries, it would actually be a normal portion for a normal eater. But we were small eaters and we had had a huge and late lunch, so this was enough for us both.

After taking off the slice of cheese on top, we discover an egg.

slicing through to see the layers of meat

placing all the ingredients out on the plate

From left to right: On the top row there is steak, egg, and cheese. On the bottom row there is bread (I think :P ), ham and meatloaf, and sausage. I hope I didn't make any mistakes. :P

We already expected from the description that we wouldn't be a fan of this dish, and we were right. (Snorlax would be a big fan.) But our visit to Porto would not be complete without trying it once.

After finishing the main dish, we called our chatty waiter back and asked for a passionfruit cheesecake. We had taken a look at the dessert display before eating. And besides desserts, the display actually had appetizers as well. In fact, they brought us an appetizer platter before we ordered, but I had found from my research that they would charge us for it, so we declined. (On a side note, I heard recently that in Japan, appetizers brought to you like this are a table charge and they are not optional. But they say that they are cheap and tasty.)

The cheesecake was very light, more like a solid mousse. We liked it. I remember it wasn't very expensive either...maybe 3 euros?

The waiter actually forgot to charge us for the cheesecake which we ordered later. When we told him that after he brought us the bill, he thanked us profusely (or maybe exaggeratedly). My father would say, why didn't you just pay and leave? :P But there were so few items on the receipt, whereas we had just finished our dessert...it would have been so hard to justify not seeing the mistake. And who knows we might want to go back again the next day...

The next morning we had breakfast in a bakery/eatery called Confeitaria Bella Roma. It is very near to our hotel; just opposite the kebab shop that I mentioned in an earlier post.

Again, we selected pastries by looking at the display.

I can't recall whether they cut the round ball for us, or whether we forgot to take a photo until after we cut it. :P

this was a let-down, because we didn't expect the inside to be just dense sweet bread

hot chocolate and coffee (the chocolate was again not very thick)

veal pie (I seem to remember that we asked at the counter and they said it was veal)

custard cream inside the chocolate-covered puff

Did I forget to take a photo of this earlier? Is that why there's such a short piece left in the photo? :P

Overall, this shop was meh. It's not bad, there was just no wow factor. Which is why for our breakfast the next day, we opted to buy from the wonderful Pastelaria e Confeitaria Moura instead. :P (Psst...did you notice? Both the pastry shop and the grillhouse where we had the Porto sandwich have the same name.)