We flew out of the Azores today; headed for Italy. We're resting at a hotel right now; dividing our trip up so as not to do too much in one day (plus, that's just how the flights worked out... lol). I meant to do this post before moving, but I'll do it now. I didn't have time in the last few days. I wanted to just post some pics of the food my family use to get at our fave little cafe there. We'd go at least once a month, probably, and hardly ever eat out anywhere else. I also met friends for lunch there frequently. I will miss it- I loved the location, the decor, the people there, and of course the food was delish (and cheap!) We first found this Pastelaria on accident when we moved to the Azores 6 years ago and I posted about it back then. Who knew that we'd be going here so regularly and it'd be our favorite place!!
These are pics of our "usuals". First pic is a sandwich I loved; bacon and cream cheese with egg, corn, lettuce, tomato, and onion. I tried to re-create it once, but it wasn't nearly as good. They have good freshly-squeezed orange juice, and I'd sometimes share a plate of fries with my husband. I'd always order a bowl of soup; they had different ones every day. My favorite was Canja, chicken, rice and lemon. The pic above is carrot soup. It was only about 1 Euro a bowl, and always good. I asked for the recipe for Canja but they said no. :( At least I have an Azorean cookbook with some Canja I can try.
My husband usually got some kind of burger; they make really good ones here. The buns are fresh; the produce is good and in the summertime, looks like it's fresh from someone's garden. For reals. Eating here, my fam started to really like mixing mayo and ketchup for fry dipping. We should have eaten our fries with a fork, like the locals. Maybe in Italy....
My daughter was so adventurous (lol) and always got a baguette with butter, fries, and a fresh orange juice or orange Fanta. (Orange Fanta is so good in Europe.... it has real juice it in. Not like in the US. And I don't' mean to say that in a snotty way; it's just true.)
My son always had a baguette with Sao Jorge cheese (pic above and below). He's not crazy about fries, so he wouldn't get those, usually. Sao Jorge cheese is super strong, but he loves it and it's one of his fave kinds of cheese. It's made on Sao Jorge island, in the Azores.
My second son always, always got a hamburger and fries. If we went to another restaurant and he ordered a hamburger, he said he didn't' like it because it didn't taste like the "Pastelaria hamburgers". I hope he's ok going to another country and trying their hamburgers! (Poor guy.) The waitresses knew he only wanted lettuce on it; no onions or tomatoes.
For my youngest, the baby of the fam, we started ordering him torrada, or toast with butter. It took us like 5 years to figure out what torrada was, by the way; and it's on all the cafe menus here. When we did figure it out, we were very happy, because we finally had something easy to order for the baby. It's only like 80 cents, too. But.... you have to say it correctly. Until a few weeks ago, we'd been saying "torada" with one R, which means bullfight.... lol!!! Someone at a different restaurant corrected us a few weeks ago, after looking utterly confused when we asked for a torada for the baby. You have to make the double R sound, which is hard for me to make. I think the Patelaria had just been humoring us, the clueless Americans, for the last year every time we asked for a bullfight. So anyway... it's torrada, not torada.
We ate here many times without getting dessert, but if we did get it, I always enjoyed this caramel tart, which tasted just like Dulce de Leche to me. I will definitely miss our favorite Pastelaria!! It's closed on Sundays, but if it was not, I bet they'd be enjoying watching Portugal play against the US in the World Cup today. :) Have a great weekend; I'll be writing from Italy next time!
