4 years ago
If you watch South Park, maybe you remember the "S...
If you watch South Park, maybe you remember the "Sodo-Sopa" episodes in which they mock this whole gentrification trend. This place is the best example of hypocrisy.
Probably, when this project started, it should have been a mixture of hip bars and restaurants, local market, vintage shops and traditional products.
In reality, it's a huge hall with 90% food stands and a few coin collectors who try to sell old coins and banknotes.
To be honest, when we got there, we were pretty excited. We saw a few hundred people (maybe over a thousand), sitting in a large eating area and enjoying their food. Some of the plates looked good, so we decided to pick one of the 50+ different restaurants.
I'm sure some of the restaurants are pretty good, but most of them are snobbish chef-wannabe food stands, where they serve tiny portions of average-taste food.
Trust me, I'm not a heavy eater, but my portion contained 1 under-cooked egg, about 1 spoon of truffle flavored puree (with absolutely NO salt) and 2 asparagus sticks. Other people got 3 tiny chunks of meat and half of a (small) potato. Most of the portions cost 15+ euro.
Finding a place to seat is challenging, especially if you have a tray with plates and drinks and you must find your way among other hundreds of people with trays that are also looking for a free spot. If you plan to eat with your friends, forget about it. Finding two nearby seats is impossible.
Also, there's a super-fancy juice / smoothie bar, from where I bought a small (3.5 eur) freshly squeezed orange juice. Or so I thought. That plastic glass was half orange juice, half mashed ice, all blended together in a diluted tasteless "orange juice". And I heard that the lemonade was even worse.
This was my experience at Time Out Market Lisbon. But then again, I'm not a snobbish hipster, so maybe my eating preferences doesn't apply to you.