In which Layla and Roz have vegetarian food angst, look at fish, and get caught in the rain

by Layla

With the sun still shining, we returned to the miradour of the glorious mohitos and ordered some, as a pre-dinner aperitif. The dinner in question was at much-acclaimed stylish restaurant Bocca, known for its exciting starters. Having climbed up quite a lot of hills and just a tad tipsy on mohitos, we confirmed that they had recorded we were vegetarian when I called to book, and settled down for another excellent meal. Alas it was not to be. After much conferring, the waiter offered us... mushroom risotto. We've had this just one time too many in Portugal, and asked if they could think of something else. The manager then appeared, clutching a laminated advertisement for Terra, the restaurant we had lunch in a couple of days ago. He said that all their food was pre-prepared and the chef couldn't do anything for us except mushroom risotto... or perhaps pureed potato. He advised us to go to Terra instead. When we declined, he offered to go onto the internet to find us a vegetarian restaurant. We explained that in these modern times a restaurant should be able to accommodate special diets, and an innovative restaurant as his allegedly was ought to be able to think of something more innovative than the old mushroom risotto... He did not really agree with this perspective.

Ten minutes later, by chance we happened to find ourselves outside one of Lisbon's few vegetarian restaurants; indeed a vegetarian Tibetan restaurant called Os Tibetanos. Despite being vegetarian, we are far keener to go to acclaimed restaurants than vegetarian restaurants, especially those attached to temples... but in this case, we were peckish and decided to give it a go. The ambience was cheery, filled with happy vegetarian refugees from Bocca-like establishments, and the food was, well, not desperately impressive. After a shared starter of cheese balls the microwave hadn't quite managed to fully penetrate, Roz had a spaghetti type thing with bits of tofu; I had dumplings, and we shared some rather mediocre wine. Not our finest meal, but at least the people were nice, the decor and ambience pleasant, and it was a mere 10 minute walk back to the miradour for a final mohito before bed.

Today the weather forecast started to catch up with us. We woke up late, to a grey sky, and Roz announced an enthusiasm for watching the royal wedding. We settled down for a historic experience over toast and juice, and felt that on the whole, we preferred our own wedding, though did feel sorry that our aisle didn't have trees along it as Will and Kate had...

After the wedding, we walked to Chiado and tried out the metro (underground) for the first time. Quite speedy and unalarming, it whisked us to Oriente, which was at Parque das Nacoes, a large riverside park which housed one of the world's largest aquaria. But first, I was tempted by the cable car which ran alongside the river, and easily persuaded Roz to have a pre-lunch spin, followed by cheese sandwiches, beer and books in a riverside cafe in what was to be the last of the sun, though we soaked it in with happy ignorance of this fact.

After lunch we proceeded to the aquarium, or Oceanarium as it's called. It's a nice one - one massive tank, and lots of little ones, and it's fantastic to go to things like that with Roz, who didn't go to such things in her childhood and had all the wonder and excitement of a five year old at seeing penguins and sea otters. Unfortunately, she also had the attention span of a grown up, and after 20 minutes of watching said creatures cavort in the water, I felt a beast for gently moving her on...

Alas, when we stepped out of the aquarium, it seemed an entirely different world to the sunny day we'd left only an hour or so ago. Torrential rain, thunder, lightening, and a girl who felt very annoyed with herself for deciding not to bother bringing an umbrella today... We made a run for it and arrived back at the metro rather damp and chilly. But by the time we'd ridden back to Chiado, and had drinks and cake (bolo de arroz) in a traditional old fashioned cafe, we'd dried out, the rain had stopped, and we pottered up the hill to our apartment, where Roz is devouring the book that kept me up til the small hours last night to finish (Chocky by John Wyndham) and I am writing before we attempt another nice restaurant tonight. We are praying for a non-mushroom risotto dinner option!