Around the edge of the store were counters serving fresh fish, meats, pastries and cakes, as well as a popular salad bar.
"Torvehallerne is a big indoor market about a block from the botanical gardens with over 60 stands selling everything from flowers and gourmet chocolate to fresh fish and pastries along with several great takeaway restaurants.
Sadly for us, the Jerusalem Breakfast, at £20 a pop, isn't yet available, though it promises just the sort of dishes that makes Russ & Daughters my top Manhattan recommendation right now: a "smorgasbord of little breakfast plates to share, with cheeses, burnt aubergine, fresh herbs, salads, eggs, smoked fish, hot pastries and cakes".
The market is comprised of a lot of independent shops, each selling different foodstuffs: coffees, popcorn, salsas, fish, beer, pastries, you name it!
The hope was to catch fish and pastry crossing a finish line, in different conditions of doneness, at the same time: the pastry brown, crusty, crunchy, hot; the fish rosy-red, warm.
And blistery pastel, fish-stuffed pastries the size of empanadas.
The problematic coulibiac: the hope was to catch fish and pastry crossing a finish line in different degrees of doneness at the same time.
And the shops are specialised: beans and falafel, milk puddings, ice-creams, Arab and European pastries, fish and prawns, sandwiches, liver and brains - and koshari.
WHERE TO EAT: O Batel's tiny yachtlike space (Travessa Tenente Resende, 21; 351-234-345-019) means reservations are essential for the fresh fish and homemade pastries.
In Brillat-Savarin's day, a popular Paris restaurant called Les Frères Provencaux offered 12 soups, 24 hors d'oeuvres, 110 entrees, 24 fish dishes, 12 pastries, 15 types of roast, 50 side dishes and 50 desserts.
