Tibino - Casa de Petiscos — Restaurant in Caldas da Rainha

Food was pretty good (although nothing special) and I would have rated 4* if it weren't for the terrible service. Overall, they have this pretentious pose, as if this was a category restaurant. But it's not at all. First, they kept us waiting outside under the rain with the excuse of covid and, even though we had already spoken with a waiter, it was apparently not enough, because then another one (presumably the manager) came and said "nono, I'm the doorman", with a self-sufficient look, as if this was a Michelin-starred restaurant. Then, the waiter was a disaster: we ordered ray and he came with a bream. We thought maybe the dish was badly translated in the menu (saying ray instead of bream), but thought it was the same dish we ordered (9.50€). However, to our surprise, they were charging us for a bream on the bill (+4€ vs ray), so it was not badly translated, it was just the work of our waiter. When we told the manager what had happened he demanded that we told him who our waiter was (shouldn't he know which waiter tends each table?) but did not subtract the 4€ from the bill. Not that we care much about the amount, but it was a poor move. Other impressive actions from this waiter include not bringing the beverages menu, just the food one (we wanted wine too); bringing a bucket full of water to chill the wine (no ice and no towel) and, when asked for the menu again to take a look to desserts, completely forgetting (we ended up asking for the bill, no dessert).

Overall, the waiter was SUPER awkward in ways I cannot even describe (we could barely hear him, he seemed all the time nervous and he poured A LOT of wine on BOTH of our glasses, just for us to taste it while he was displaying the bottle in such an awkward position). I really hope he was just intellectually disabled and the restaurant gets state funding for keeping him here.

We paid 52€ for a starter, two mains, bottle of wine,...

The restaurant is pretty, and the food - when it eventually arrived - was tasty. Portions are very decent.

What let this experience down is that the service was so slow that we spent the waiting hours imagining how the food needed to be purchased, nurtured, raised and butchered, before it could eventually be cooked and served.

There was not obvious reason for the slow service. The restaurant was about half full, and there were plenty of staff. We arrived at 13.20, ordered at 13.30. Food eventually arrived at 14.40.

This might be fine if you enjoy a nap before drinks arrive. But we had two hungry children who were growing increasingly desperate.

Amusingly, our order of three glasses of orange juice seemed to necessitate the oranges to be fetched one at a time, and the juicing ceremony was obviously so strenuous that the glasses of juice were delivered one at a time, each 15 minutes apart.

Would only recommend if you need to hibernate in between courses, and have no time-dependent...

Seems we chose the wrong night tonight.looked lovely on website and as we walked in but sadly that's where it ended: my wife's first choice of salmon not available, second choice sea bream also not available, third choice of bife grelhado was actually very nice.My choice of skewered chicken nor available- the waiter very helpfully agreed to ask chef to do a peppered steak- well done, unfortunately this obviously was too much of the a challenge as it turned out virtually rare😕☹☹. We had booked for 7.30 so not late and noted people arriving after us being given explanation of lack of availability of dishes as being due to restaurant being closed tomorrow.- one dish maybe but at least 3 ?- in my book thats just bad planning/management. We skipped desert and left dissapointed- won't be in a hurry to return or recommend to several friends holidaying later this year. Your loss Tibino- we would have had deserts and more wine and coffee- went to a nearby competitor who could provide...