Pensão Amor

I have a curious relationship with this space. First time I heard about it, it opened along with two other cool bars in what I considered to be a sudden cultural movement in Lisbon: the pink street, named as so due to its manly pink color.

This fostered a very interesting mesh of people, on the one hand, the squalid people that hang out in the sleazy bars that dominated that area before, on the other hand, the high classes that eat tapas and caviar, that began do be attracted to this filthy street due to is new fancy places. And there was harmony, go figure!

Then, when I returned from my first trip to Budapest, Pensão Amor seemed like a wannabe Ruin Pub with selective clientele and boosted prices. And I became more disappointed, because my expectations came high. 

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Nevertheless, I still can enjoy this place. There is a cabaret feel, kitschy stuff and furniture decorating the place. In the big room there is some space to dance and a bar with night and day prices (so watch out and don't be fooled!). On the wall a big deer head is staring at us. It is lightened by a spotlight so it comes as an important piece of the room. There is also a more kinky room near the erotic literature and accessories shops, with leopard print, psychedelic ceiling, a strip pole and mirrors.

It is not the same as the ruin pubs, but it sure is over crowded on fridays and saturdays.

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Open from monday to wednesday from midday to 2h and thursdays and fridays from midday to 4h.

Banana Café Kiosk

The rehabilitation of the Liberdade avenue kiosks is one of the things that made me happier these last days. I walk this path a lot of times to go to the center, down from Marquês. You can take a peek at all this fancy places and drool a bit seeing people eating all sorts of good looking food (20€ brunch in Ad Lib).

Now I have yet another reason to do this by foot. I like to see the kiosks full of life. Little by little Lisbon is healing its wounds, baby steps, we are getting there.

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Banana Café repeats itself, one near Marquês and another one near the Restauradores, I went to this last one. They have HUGE toasts that you can even split by three people and they are 3.50€ (but not the best in the world). The cold tea is 1.80€ (it was pretty nice). The salads and pies are also good.

Each kiosk has its personality. My idea initially was to go to Time Out Kiosk and hear some jazz by the Hot Club students, but due to facebook divulgation, it was completely full. Anyway, getting some sun and fresh air in either one is priceless.

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Open everyday from 10h to 2h.

Miradouro do Adamastor (Adamastor's Viewpoint)

This is actually called Miradouro de S. Catarina (Saint Catarina's Viewpoint), but it got the nickname of Adamastor due to the statue that is place in the little garden that here lies. This is undoubtedly the most unusual sightseeing place. It may not have a weird owner, but the people that come here are so diverse they make any artist feel totally ordinary. At night, it gets completely crowded.

It is impossible to leave without a funny story, whether some crazy guy comes to tell us all his life, or a bunch of welsh people decide to have a bachelor party semi naked and taking beer baths, while the husband-to-be talks with us smiling, apologizing the fact the we had to see him drunk into super mario dungarees:

We're not from England! We are Welsh, and we couldn't care less about them and football. Kinda like Portugal and Spain. You know soccer? We are all soccer players!

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The best thing here for me is the sangria, so refreshing, the prices are amazing: 1€ (small, 22cl), 1.5€ (medium, 33cl) and 2€ (big, 50cl), same for beer. They also have tasty salty pastry for around 1€ each, which means with 2.5€ you get a nice little lunch while contemplating a wonderful view. The toast is 4€ and can be shared by two not-so-hungry people.

When I went there last time someone decided to give a red heart to the monster, it was an initiative called Aqui Bate um Coração (A heart beats here).

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Open everyday from 10h to 4h.

Vertigo

The ceiling was one thing that I think characterized the place. It is a stained glass with an intricate pattern filled with flowers, some animals and an inca touch. One of three different light sources that prevail, giving it a more ostentatious aura.

There is also natural light coming from the windows and an orange hue coming from the lamps, it ends up being a mix of different light sources and color. Giving it a gloomy but imposing feel.

The mysterious snail stairs to the basement make me wonder if they have concerts, or if they are hiding some sort of goblin down there. Further investigation is needed. Maybe they have concerts with goblins.

There was also a checkers game nearby but it was incomplete, games don't survive in coffee places for long.

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I had the usual and my friend asked for açaí. Açaí is the new trend in fruit, it comes from Brazil and it is said to be super nutritive. It arrives to us as a pulp already (that is why it has such a high price). It looks like chocolate ice-cream but tastes like red fruit yogurt with porridge, go figure, it is really good.

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Monday to thursday from 11h to 22h. Fridays and saturdays from 11h to midnight. Sundays from 12h to 19h.

Royale Café

Some time ago I decided that I deserved a big lunch, even if it was over my student budget. So I did two firsts: Royale Café and polvo à lagareiro (a super tender octopus recipe with roasted potatoes). It was 10.85€, which is cheap for what it was, it was freaking delicious.

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Recently I returned to Royale but my throat was so bad and so full of aphtae I could only eat liquids. A beet soup for 3.30€ it's not the cheapest thing but I was starving. We ate inside but there is a small balcony/esplanade on ground level surrounded by a wall of vines. I am specially fond of the porcelain animals that decorate the place.

The fun factor of the day was seeing a little kid hammering the floor with his dad iphone (or similar). Adorable ingenuity!

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Monday to saturday from 10h to midnight. Sunday from 10h to 20h (no dinners are served this day).

Alface Hall

There are many things which we can use to rate a place and an experience and that I always take in consideration. I don't write them in a paper, it is kind of an emotional process. So they are:
- Physical space (architecture/design/concept);
- The place where it is located on the map (the area);
- The people that belong there (and their niceness);
- The food (but maybe less relevant);
- The company I take with me (can turn a bad place in a wonderful experience);
- The extras (music, events, games, interactive stuff).

When all these requirements are fulfilled we know we are in a perfect place. We feel it. And this place nailed it.

First time I came by accident. We passed by it and the wonderful free jazz lured us inside. We asked for a cocktail that was a mix of lemon ice-cream with vodka. They let us try first which was pretty awesome, and served it after it had our approval. They won me completely, so I quickly planned my return.

The second time, I came back for a working session, we got to talk a little bit with the bartender and we got some neighborhood knowledge (they want to close the convenience stores at 20h to stop the botellón).

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Between tables and sofas, we can chose what best fits us: are we drinking? Eating? Jazzing? Or working?

It is incredible the number of details of Alface Hall and the ways they use the material. The t-shirts, instead of being shown in a boring way are hanging like drying clothes and help to fill the empty space left by the high ceilings.

Over the door there is a motorcycle, and there are also some old gas pumps, telephones, bottles, radios, cameras, dolls, and the barber chairs (my favorite detail, no doubt about it).

I asked for a ham and brie toast, it was the best toast I have ever eaten. For 4.50€, I don't care really, any price, feed me this. Then the jazz started around 21h and I was in heaven.

Before leaving I decided to leave them a gift, and so my first cat from a small series was born. The Alface Cat (yes, that is a lettuce, sorry).

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This place also ends up being more multicultural as it is connected to a hostel. You can hear english frequently. It is also near the erasmus corner (if I am not mistaken).

Funny how the word hostel creates by itself a kind of erasmus world where freely socializing is normal. We don't randomly talk to people in cafés, we have our folks, but we do it in a hostel, we are more polite and have more guts to ask some questions and they are somewhat well received.

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Open from 16h to midnight everyday.

Miradouro de Monte Agudo (2)

You can find the first post about this place here.

I noticed some differences after coming here a second time: the music was not so zen, now it was a Keith Jarrett half hour composition, and they had new chairs. But other than that, the rest remained. All the stuff, the weird people and the dogs, lots of dogs.

The owner kept his usual je ne sais quoi, appearing not to notice the clients. But that doesn't bother me really, it looks genuine, it gives some soul to the place. He even dared to make a weird face when I asked a coffee with milk after my capilé drink. He was right! I drank half a liter of each, I felt like puking afterwards. How could I guess the galão was GIANT. Next time I will take his advice.

The prices are amazing for the quantities. The capilé is not as good as the one in the Lisbon Kiosks, but it was cheaper. I also photographed the menu for extra information. Please use google translator as my fingers are hurting from translating all this stuff today.

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And of course we cannot finish the visit without gazing the landscape from the viewpoint. It is not my total favorite view, but is damn good already.

Some side notes: Parking the car near this place is quite hard, so consider yourself warned and come by public transportation, also, they have a bathroom on the left side of the kiosk, ask for it if you also are drinking a litter of liquid like me.

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Open everyday from 11:30h to sunset, as the menu says. Or everyday except monday from midday to 20h as the facebook says. Trust what you want!