Time Out Market / Mercado da Ribeirain in Lisbon

Elsa and Ryo spent 5 days in Lisbon and here we summarise our food adventures with you.

This post will focus on the food we had at the Time Out Mercado da Ribeirain, a huge market of which one half is the sale of fresh fruit, vegetables and meat and the other half, a fancy food hall which serves alcohol. This review will focus on the latter. Most stalls have a proper restaurant outside the market area.

Elsa and Ryo were recommended the Time Out market by our Airbnb host, so on the first evening of our arrival we walked there to see what it was like.

Interior

Elsa: I was amazed when we arrived, it was huge and busy and the choice of food was vast. I was eyeing up each stall’s menu and it became increasingly hard to choose the more we walked around.

Ryo: The place was huge, very modern and clean. It’s basically a food court but with a modern twist? We went around the dinner time, so it was quite busy. If anyone is going here for dinner, it’s worth grabbing the seats first then go and check the food…

The food

Time Out spread

Food from Confraria

Salmon sushi set

Elsa: The salmon was very nice and I especially enjoyed the hot roll in the top right. For 10,00 EUR, you get a decent amount of fresh salmon.

Ryo: Can’t fault it really. Salmon was fresh and overall not bad for 10 euro.

Information

Website: http://www.confrariasushi.pt/
Address outside the market: Portugal, R. Alecrim 12A, 1200-161 Lisboa, Portugal

Food from Marlene Vieira

Creamy duck and asparagus rice
Avocado and crab salad

Elsa: The rice was surprisingly nice. I’ve not had much luck with risottos but this has changed my mind on them. Absolutely delicious and full of flavour. The avocado and crab salad was also very nice and fresh, even the croutons were nice and I’m not a huge fan of croutons.

Ryo: That duck and asparagus risotto was the best food that we tried in this market! I love cooking risottos but I rarely eat it in restaurants (it’s often too bland/rich and the rice is either not cooked enough or overcooked…) but this dish was amazing. I’ve never had duck meat in risottos but it really works – it had tons of flavours but not heavy. The avcado and crab salad wasn’t bad at all though I have to say it wasn’t anything special…

INFORMATION

She also cooks at Avenue Restaurante
Address: Av. da Liberdade 129B, Portugal

Food from Chef Miguel Castro e Silva

Octopus rice and chicken gizzards in a spicy tomato sauce

Elsa: The octopus rice was nice but nothing to sing about. What really shone here were the chicken gizzards, they were really tender and the tomato sauce perfectly complimented it.

Ryo: I was a little bit disappointed by the octopus rice. Given that it’s one of the Portuguese signature dishes, I had high hopes that it would be something special (or re-interpreted?). Octopus was slightly overcooked and chewy and the sauce was too watery. The chicken gizzards, on the other hand, was amazing! It was really tender but still kept it’s texture and the spicy tomato sauce really brought the dish as a whole.

INFORMATION

Website: https://miguelcastrosilva.com/

Desserts from various outlets

Desserts
Ice cream from Santini, 3 flavours: Autumn, Doce de Ovo (Portuguese sweet egg) with pine nuts and Doce de Leite (Dulce de leche)
Chocolate and strawberry meringue from Nós é Mais Bolos
Toffee pudding from Marlene Vieira

Elsa: I enjoyed all three ice cream flavours from Santini, although I found cramming all three into the cup made some of the flavours harder to differentiate. Maybe stick to one or two? The meringue I had expected to be light but there was a heavy chocolate layer sandwiched between the layers, tasty but not what I thought it’d be. The toffee pudding also mimicked this tasty but not what I expected trend, as I had thought it’d be more creamy in texture but was actually more like a solid gel. All in all, not bad but nothing of particular note. I was disappointed with the lack of light desserts.

Ryo: Not bad ice cream though they were all a bit too sweet for my taste. As Elsa said all desserts we had were on the (unexpectedly) heavy side with lots of creams and eggs. As I’m not a fan of rich desserts, I think I had a bite or two but that was about it – so I can’t really comment on how they tasted like…

Information

Santini website: http://santini.pt/
Santini address: R. do Carmo 9, 1200-093 Lisboa, Portugal

Nós é Mais Bolos website: http://www.nosemaisbolos.com/

Other foods

Overall comments

Elsa: I really liked the Lisbon Time Out market as it gives you a good opportunity to see what Lisbonians eat and everyone gets to pick something they want, you’re not confined to one place. This is especially good if you like sharing food as you can maximise the different types of foods you eat by having a little of everything bought. I would recommend all tourists come here at least once.

Ryo: It’s a good place especially for tourists to sample the local food. The price is generally reasonable though it is higher than most non-tourists restaurants in Lisbon, but then, the food would be more consistent with quality. I’m not a big fan of food courts and prefer smaller eateries but I can definitely see the attraction. As Elsa said, it is a good place especially if you like sharing food.

Information

Address: Av. 24 de Julho 49, 1200-161 Lisboa, Portugal