Azteca Cascais — Restaurant in Cascais

Update: I gave it another chance. The food is still bland and overpriced. The service improved.

It's a fusion of Portuguese and Mexican food where it isn't fully authentic. The really high price point doesn't match the food quality. The opening week jitters affected both the service and the kitchen.

We started with the bean dip and guacamole. The bean dip was good and the guacamole was overly watery and detracted from the flavor. The queso fundido was ok and the smoked Portuguese sausage didn't pair quite right with the cheese. The tortillas for the queso fundido were old and falling apart. At this price point, the tortillas should have been home made, or at a minimum, fresh. The tortilla chips were good and fresh.

I had the octopus tacos which were the highlight of the evening. The octopus was paired with sausage and brought out some good smokey flavors. I also had the birria, gobernador, and shrimp tacos. I wouldn't particularly recommend any of them. Each of them suffered from the old tortillas that at this price point should have been home made. Others at the table had the quesadillas and said they were good.

Another big part of Mexican food is the salsa. None of the salsas had a particularly authentic flavor. The spiciness of the salsa is quite weak. They're definitely going after the Portuguese palette for the spice profile. I asked for the spiciest salsa and it was still weak. Probably a medium to a mild level. It's definitely not what you would expect from the hottest sauce there.

For dessert we had the churros. There was an inconsistency in cooking where some of the churros were uncooked on the inside. The ones that were correctly cooked were tasty. The dulce de leche sauce didn't add much. I much prefer a chocolate sauce for churros.

We had a large group and the service was difficult for both the front of house and kitchen. One person's food didn't come until 45 minutes after everyone else was served. And then when she received her plate it wasn't the correct one which took another 10 minutes to get. So she ate a full 55 minutes after we did. One person never received their food. We ended up sharing our food with her as she was hungry. I ordered a fourth taco that took 45 minutes to arrive. Other parts of our order just never arrived and we had to check the bill to make sure we weren't...

Wonderful atmosphere inside, but the outside could benefit from a more cozy ambience. Nonetheless me and my girlfriend were really impressed by the food, we ordered Tacos ( Al Pastor and Birria ) and the Shrimp Quesadilla, which in our opinion were really well balanced, the Birria Taco missed some onions to have that perfect recipe, but it was great. Both the starters and desserts were solid, but the real stars of the show are undeniably the mains. In general it was a pleasant experience and we'll be coming...

Overpriced food (6 eur for 1 tacos and 15 to 22 euro most other dishes which are quite small). I have been to Mexico many times and this food isn't even close to what you find there. I ordered an alambre and it was just some meat with peppers, not at all an alambre and it jad no flavor at all. Also the service was very slow and took me forever to pay the bill as the waiters were just chatting between themselves and I had to go call them inside...