So here's the interesting thing - this was one of *many* places to get pastel de nata that made to…read moremultiple lists of places you had to stop, which meant I obviously had to stop at as many of them as possible over the course of the couple weeks I was in Portugal, a couple months ago, in both Porto and Lisbon (also to a lesser extent, Coimbra). This means I can now say who made them best, and more importantly, why. The interesting thing is, I didn't think the pastel de nata here were particularly great, on any dimension - fairly flimsy, doughy crust, with a pudding-like, drippy filling that was too sweet and not quite eggy enough. Don't get me wrong, I'd still eat them any time someone offered, they were still tasty, you just have a ton of options nearby, some of them notably better than the ones here. I also tried one of their fancy-looking cookies, which definitely looked fancier than it tasted. Was just a cookie. Dessert-wise I was unimpressed. They were also always fairly busy, which made ordering feel a bit rushed.
So why am I still giving this bakery 5 stars, and why did I come back here a couple more times, including to get food to-go the morning we left, to get food to take on the plane with us? For exactly one reason, and it's a weird one: oddly enough, the samosas here are the best samosas I've ever had, and by a wide margin. You'd think the best samosas ever would come from an Indian restaurant or bakery, but nope, they're here. The other small savory food items we tried were also pretty good, but the samosas are the juiciest, meatiest, most perfectly bursting with spices samosas I've had. Who knew?
They also had pretty solid espresso and pretty solid free-squeezed orange juice, but those aren't hard to find in Portugal (I miss seeing inexpensive fresh squeezed OJ all over the city... especially *truly* fresh squeezed, to order, from whole oranges. Portuguese OJ definitely was the best. Though obviously not *better* than other places you can get the same thing around - probably indeed the same oranges. Definitely better than anywhere you can get fresh OJ for a few bucks in the US, though, if you can find such a place. :p)
