Mercado Municipal...Praia da Vitoria

This past Friday was still like a vacation day for me, so I thought I would make a tourist and head into the downtown area.  Actually, for the first few days of the week, I did go to the beach area and sit in a cafe that had some couches, drank some coffee and read my book for my next grad class.  Although the weather was terrible, I insisted on pretending it was good in order to enjoy my "vacation". 

While Marie was in town, we walked by the local Market area, the Mercado Municipal, and I spotted a little eatery that seemed to be new.  Since I had still not really checked it out, I decided that would be my adventure for the afternoon.

As you can see, this market is small, but it is partially outdoors, partially enclosed, and has a variety of products.  All the villages around here have little markets spread throughout, so there is no big or major market here.  I think this is the closest thing.

This is the fish shop.

This means butcher.

Then there is lots of produce.

They even had some cheese and butter in this shop.  The gentleman working here did give me some yummy cheese samples.

I also thought these looked cool.  They were like giant meringue cookies.

After looking through the shops here, it was time to get some lunch.  I liked that they had some tables out in the market area.

Here is the salad bar area.  I did check out this website, but I couldn't get it to work for me.  The options on the menu were soup and bread, salad, or a chicken sandwich, and I guess other combos of those options too.  They also make fresh squeezed juice.  I spotted someone drinking some passion fruit juice, which is popular around here. 

I ordered a salad.  In my salad was pasta, lettuce, carrots (cooked but chilled), broccoli (also cooked but chilled), and strawberries with apples (I think, I swear I thought it could be melon also).  The green on top is pesto.  They do not use dressing like we do in the US.  Instead, it is often just served with oil and vinegar.  So, this was like a pesto dressing, which was a nice change from always having the oil and vinegar,

Look at those colors!

I mixed it up some so you can see the other ingredients hidden below.

Oh, and of course they gave me some bread with this. 

It was delicious.  I would definitely go back for more.

QUESTIONS:  Do you have a fish market near by or a stand-alone butcher (not in the grocery store)?  Do you like to put fruit in your salad, and if so, what kinds?