We Went to Porto and Ate All the Sandwiches
Plus a New Italian Cocktail Recipe
Everybody loves Porto. They love the Romanesque skyline, the port tastings across the river in Vila Nova da Gaia , the tile-adorned buildings and, of course, the food.
Porto sports an array of restaurants and most are solid. We’ve had more than our share of good meals at tascas like O Rapido, bistros like Apego and two Michelin starred restaurants - The Yeatman in Gaia and Casa da Cha da Boa Nova, with a view of the ocean, in Matosinhos. But Porto is also a great sandwich city that charges us up every time we visit. The same applies when we visit New York City, Paris, New Orleans and even Philly - they’re great sandwich towns too.
We still remember 2020, in the heart of the pandemic, wandering off an empty street into Casa Guedes to find a worker behind the counter of the restaurant cutting slices off a giant leg of pork (pernil). Those luscious juicy slices of pork were then layered on a classic ‘Portuguese’ roll and slathered with liquidy, raw milk Serra da Estrella cheese. The cheese, made with clawing sheeps milk, provided an edgy counterpoint to the fatty pork. After taking our first bites, we became fans for life.
To this day, we consider Guedes’ sandwich one of the best in Europe, if not the world.
By now, everyone who travels to or lives in Portugal is familiar with the Francesinha - a unique sandwich that simultaneously offends and captivates eaters with its overabundance of melted cheese, multiple meats and beefy, tomatoey gravy. The sandwich reminds Daryl of the open faced hot roast beef sandwiches he grew up eating at local diners in Philadelphia. In fact, it’s entirely plausible that America’s open-faced hot roast beef sandwiches were invented by a bored Portuguese line cook during a graveyard shift.
The ‘traditional’ Francesinha we shared at Casa Guedes’ sit-down location this past weekend was one of the better ones we’ve eaten. The open faced sandwich was simply topped with a fire red piri-piri pepper and contained layers of melted gouda, sausage and mortadella over a substantial medium rare cooked steak. We’d say that we ate the entire sandwich but we’d be lying. Even we have our limits.
Douro Valley Nightcap
We’d never been to the Douro Valley until this past weekend. Our previous attempt to slowly explore the steep, hilly wine region fell through and, as the subsequent years passed by, we always pushed the destination to the back burner.
Finally, we used Daryl’s mom’s visit as an excuse to do a quick yet exhausting tour of the valley that included a big homestyle lunch, multiple wine tastings and a boat trip. What do you do after such an epic day? We ate another of our Porto faves - the Cachorrinho (Portugal’s version of the hot dog) at Cervejaria Gazela where the sandwich was invented.
Gazela grills sausages, tops them with melted cheese and spicy sauce and then serves them on crunchy rolls cut in small segments for easy eating. Our Gazela hot dogs were even better than we remembered - smoky and slightly piquant with a crunchy finish.
More Porto Sandwiches
Yes. There are many more great sandwiches in Portugal’s northern city. Restaurants like Conga make a great version of the Bifana. While we can easily find the stewed pork sammy all over Lisbon, the Bifanas in Porto are wetter and juicier without much of the chewy gristle often found in the Lisbon version.
Then there’s the Bolo de Berlim, Portugal’s version of Germany’s cream filled ‘Berliner’ donuts, which we love eating in Porto. The cream in the Bolo de Berlim is set between two donut halves which technically qualifies it as a sandwich too.
Some of our friends have a preconceived notion of the way we like to dine, as if we’re always eating tasting menu tweezer food with big prices. However, truth be told, we’d choose to eat sandwiches any day of the week when given the choice. It’s why we keep returning to cities like Porto.
Dish of the Week - Simple Roast Chicken
Next week will be all about turkey, or peru as it’s called here in Portugal. This week, however, is a good week to roast a chicken.
We get that roast chicken is one of those dishes that intimidates novice chefs but it’s actually easy to roast a chicken at home. Our recipe will show you how to do it.
Drink of the Week - Pirlo
While you've surely heard of Italy's Negroni and Aperol Spritz, you're probably not familiar with the Pirlo unless you've traveled to Brescia, the medium-sized city about an hour east of Milan. We say this because that's how we recently discovered the Pirlo ourselves.
The Pirlo is a great option if you love sipping sophisticated sparkling cocktails but don’t have a bottle of sparkling wine on hand. It’s what we’re sipping this week.
New on Social Media
We recently joined Bluesky and we’re loving the social media platform so far. We’re excited to see where it goes!
Links We’re Liking
Considering that Delta is now serving Shake Shack burgers to some of its first class passengers, we’re clearly not the only world travelers who appreciate sandwiches and other cheap eats. | CNN
This year’s World Cheese Awards was held in the Portuguese city of Viseu and featured 4,786 cheeses from 47 countries. A Portuguese cheese won the grand prize. Coincidence or conspiracy? We’ll let you know after we taste the cheese. | CNN
Emiril Lagasse has joined the Portugal parade with his new restaurant in New Orleans. Our only question is if he’ll be serving the award winning cheese or not. | Wine Spectator
Arthur Frommer, a travel legend, died a few days ago. Whether you love or hate his guides, there’s no debate that he changed the way that Americans travel. | New York Times (gifted)
Deal Alert - Discounted Travel Insurance
We never travel without travel insurance - the risks are just too high. Our partner, Heymondo, has started its annual Black Friday sale early. Click here to get a 15% regardless of your travel dates. Don’t wait too long - the sale ends on December 2nd.
Until next week,
Daryl & Mindi