Nandinha Porto
Droolworthy Bolas!
One of the things that I'm quite proud of in my country is the amazing pastry that we developed over years and years of practice, love and innovation.
One in particular that I love is called Bola de Berlim, that roughly translates to berlim ball and is in fact a regional variant of the German Berliners. If you're totally oblivious of what a Berliner is, it's basically a fluffy sweet yeast dough, fried in a spherical shape, filled with jam or stuff like that. The Portuguese version is bigger, the sugar is usually more grainy and the stuffing is normally an egg-yolk based yellow cream.
So I love to keep track of places that excel in serving this amazing pastry, one that always makes your clothes sugary white but your tummy scream in joy. Nandinha, near the great Redondo, is one of my all time favourite places to devour this little ball of plain and pure happiness.
Small in size but huge in quality, Nandinha covers most of the Portuguese baking delicacies, also quite famous for their glórias, an explosive caloric portion of sugar and egg, donut shaped thingy that tastes wonderfully. They also serve lunch (good prices) and have this funny tradition where customers take Nandinha's logo to different parts of the world and take a photo with it: some are hung on a wall, and it actually adds something to Nandinha's personality.
Diabetes and teeth problems aside, go to Nandinha and just enjoy the sweeter side of Porto.
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