Magnum ice cream bar in Lisbon

There are many hills in Lisbon which means there are lots of steps going up and down. I always wonder how elderly people in Lisbon do their grocery shopping, especially in the middle of summer when the temperature could easily go up to 35 degrees.

It was hot summer day in Lisbon. I said to my husband that I wanted ice cream. You can get ice cream anyway in Lisbon - there are lots of good gelato places in the city but it had to be the ice cream bar from Magnum Pleasure Store (http://www.magnumicecream.com/uk/inside-magnum/pleasure-store.html?gclid=CPKu9M34jM4CFa8y0wodN2sJBA&gclsrc=aw.ds) at Rue Trinidad 13. This meant that, instead of going to a gelato parlour around the corner from our hotel, we had to walk up the hill with lots of steps just to have an ice cream bar....  things I would do for food ...

Every now and again, I had to rest in order to have my breath back, pretending that I stopped to have a look at some pictures on walls ...

I was looking at this sardines picture on the wall. Next thing I thought something big just passed by me. I turned around and guess what!  I saw a man carrying three sacks of root vegetables on his left shoulder, walking down the steps with steady gait and with ease in the sweltering heat!! He would definitely deserve a Magnum ice cream bar.

We continued on, going  further up the hill and eventually found the Store...

To be honest, I don't think the place is that obvious from the street.  I would not have noticed if we weren't specifically looking for the place. Magnum Pleasure Store is upstairs in an unassuming building.

When we arrived, the cue was not that long so we were quite lucky, great, we could get served soon...

The idea is very simple. You choose chocolate coating as base flavour from white, milk or dark chocolates, you then choose 3 toppings for sprinkles. That's it for 3 Euro.

The only difficulty is that you won't know what flavours you can get for sprinkles untill you get to the sprinkles section. You have to make a swift executive decision on the spot, otherwise you would hold up other people who are cueing patiently behind you.... and this is also the reason why the cue is not actually moving that fast. We thought we could get served quickly but we were wrong. We still had to wait a bit.

Made of wooden ice cream spoon ....

I thought I had to start counting wooden ice cream spoons whilst waiting.

Finally our turn came. We paid 3 Euro each and the girl at the till explained how the system works. I then had a quick peak at what flavours there were ....

Next thing, I was asked what flavour of chocolate I wanted. I asked for milk chocolate and my husband asked for white chocolate. And then it starts ....

This was the person who made my ice cream bar.... he was very friendly and cheerful. When I started snapping away with my mobile phone, he kept asking if I was taking video or photo and I thought Oh, maybe I was not supposed to do that ... then my husband told me to say yes so that he could start creating my ice cream. 

Dipping an ice cream bar into milk chocolate sauce ...

My ice cream creator then asked me what sprinkles I wanted and that I could choose 3. I can be very indecisive but I had to make a quick decision at that point but it was not easy. On what basis should I decide?  Should I go for colour scheme, should I go for flavour combinations or should I go for how it would look good in photo...

I was under pressure, knowing there were people waiting for me to choose and move on swiftly; I got to decide NOW.

I don't know what and why I chose but I went for rose petal, pistachio and dried fruit tea. Such a random combination. My ice cream creator then said I could choose another one because I chose dried fruit. Oh no, more choice, what I am gonna choose ....

My husband suggested meringue. I had no time to waste and meringue sounded great so I said meringue!

My ice cream creator started working on my custom-made ice cream bar. Shaking all my selected ingredients into a silver shaker, shook them up quickly and sprinkled over my milk chocolate coated bar....

He then drizzle chocolate sauce ....

He then put chocolate stamp of Magnum's M on my bar, advising me to keep it flat and leave it just a little to let all sprinkles and M would settle.

On my left, another creator was creating my husband's Magnum ice cream bar ...

Once done, we walked across the shop trying to find a place to sit and eat...

Here are our ice cream bars ..

My husband's bar with pistachio, honey grazed almonds and dark chocolate shavings looks really good and neat and obviously he must have thought through quickly what would look nice and tasty in such a relatively short time.  He is a very decisive man, always logical and that shows on his ice cream bar.

Compared to that, mine looks so chaotic with rose petals, pistachio, meringue and dried fruit tea combination - no strategy whatsoever in terms of colour scheme or flavour combinations, just chaotic! ... Does it mean I am chaotic ...?

I tried my bar - you get sweetness from meringue, nuttiness from pistachio and a bit of perfume-like aroma from rose petal and dried fruit tea. To be honest I don't think the combination worked that well but they were not horrible neither. Just ... different .... I got different flavours that kept changing or morphing (?) within my mouth. Well, that was fun, and it was a chocolate ice cream bar after all. It was delicious how chaotic the flavour toppings were.

And never mind about the calories ... at least I did some exercise earlier, going up the hill with lots of steps, so I did deserve Magnum ice cream bar that day.

That's all forks!