Outro Lado — Restaurant in Faro

I was really looking forward to eating here! Sadly they had a few things missing from the menu and they never told us beforehand! The cheese plate and the veggie stew were both missing, which is what my parents were going for! They chose the risotto in the end, but somehow they only made one so they asked them to share until they made the other one (20-30 mins more, we were all finished by then). Didn't offer anything to compensate for the mistake. On top of that, you also couldn't really taste the butternut squash in the risotto.The wait time was also really long, over an hour. Hence, I will rate the service as disappointing, however the food was really cook especially their fake fish (tofu)! It's wrapped in multiple layers of seaweed and tastes lovely and healthy! Would've been nice to have a brown rice option though! We also ordered croquettes with vegan cashew cheese, which were amazing, my dad (big meat eater) absolutely loved them! Atmosphere was nice with candles in the toilet and small lights around the room, however, we found there was not plenty of space between the tables. Also outdoor seating would've been nice, but the location doesn't allow for that. Overall good place, but disappointed about...

We were greeted by a very polite waitress who proceeded to show us to our seats and accomodated for us for a seat change. The service was impeccable, granted there were only two staff on the floor attending to the entire restaurant which was impressive. The bathroom area was also very clean and well equipped.

On the food's arrival, the items looked appealing and the presentation was delightful. However, the majority of the food lacked flavours and was overly-salted. The mains were terrible and all 3 of our dishes were unfortunately not to our liking. The 'Francesina' was one of the most dissappointing dishes I have had in a while- it's essence was that of soggy bread dipped in canned tomato soup. The 'typical Seitan shank' was overly salted with no flavour. I hasten to add that the best part of the meal was the starter of 'Alheira balls stuffed'- I would strongly recommend these. The waitress was kind enough to constantly ask if we were satisfied with our meal and my compliments go out to them. This restaurant has huge potential, however the dishes need to be...

I have to warn about this place. what they do is they take a portuguese meat/fish dish, then replace everything, ingredient-by-ingredient, with the vegan thing that they think best approximates it. This is obviously not the way to make vegetarian or vegan food. vegan 'tuna pate' is bs. it doesnt taste like tuna, according to my meat eating gf. to me (a vegetarian) it just doesnt taste good. just like vegan 'francesinho' (portuguese sandwhich), which tasted extremely bland and was more than a little nauseating. they did not understand our request for a beyond burger and served my gf a bittoya or whatever instead. the only good thing about it, according to her, was the salad (we also enjoyed our drinks and the service gets an A+ for tolerating the looks on our faces). I left half of my food and we ran off to the mac to wash away the bad feelings with some honest ice cream and soda. The way to make good vegetarian or vegan food is to make dishes that rely on the strengths of the ingredients, not by making bad copies of existing dishes. this should...