Sunday, March 04, 2007

I cannot quite remember whether it was the Vino Tinto - perhaps you know the
sort, slightly gruff and moody but heart-warming nonetheless. Or maybe it
was the outrageously sensuous and fickly-named Serradura, a pudding so
seductive it would have broken laws in any other incarnation. Either way I
finished my meal at La Lorcha with the conclusion that if you are looking
for an authentic culinary experience that hits every spot in the stomach and
still has pretensions to being healthy, it has to be Portuguese. After
supper, I walked through the Avenidas and Estradas past the Dom Pedro V
Theatre and the various monasteries while catching, I thought, a slight hint
of southern Europe's perfumed air. And then I saw the egg - an electronic
egg. No, an electronic Faberge egg. Again - an electronic Faberge egg that
was 100 feet tall and still greater in girth. "Welcome," it greeted me in
tens of millions of flashing pixels, "to the Hotel Lisboa!"