Much Ado About Natas

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“Our happiest moments as tourists always seem to come when we stumble upon one thing in pursuit of something else.” – Lawrence Block

We first discovered pastel de nata while we were in Porto. “Murph, what are these pastries that everyone is walking around eating?” I wondered. We asked our hotel manager, Luis, and he told us all about them. We had to taste them for ourselves and they did not disappoint!
We tasted them in Porto, Coimbra and Sinatra.
But the holy grail is in Lisbon, specifically Belém. This café is the birthplace of the wonderful custard tarts. Since 1837, residents have been coming to this café to get their tarts fresh. Its popularity stems mainly from the fact that their recipe is a closely guarded secret —supposedly only three people know the exact proportions of the ingredients. This café cranks out 20,000 or so a day—you can get them fresh and crunchy, literally hot out of the oven.
The way I understand it, the monks at the nearby monastery used egg whites to starch their robes and as a result there were tons of leftover egg yolks. The nuns had an abundance of sugar from Brazil and along with those yokes, they created pastel de natas! Bless their hearts ❤️
A little bit of heaven in every bite!
It’s a Portuguese thing, y’all…
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Published by murphys836

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12 thoughts on “Much Ado About Natas”

  4. I’m glad you guys stumbled upon such a pastry delight. I know Murph has a nose for discovering such places, i.e., Hinkley Bakery.

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