Petisqueira 3 em pipa — Restaurant in Faro

My husband and I had dinner here on 16 December on recommendation of our host. We have since asked him to remove this restaurant from his list of suggestions. Our evening started good with fast service. The pastries were good and the chicken wings had a lovely smokey flavour. After this everything else varied between disappointing and downright inedible.

The fresh bacalhau was disappointing due to a lack of textural contrast: it was served with a soft egg, soft mash and the fish itself had the same soft texture as everything else in the bowl. The octopus with black sausage was interesting and flavoursome but very greasy.

And then came the biggest disappointment: pork cheeks, a favourite of mine and something I cook often at home in South Africa. It was so salty that the chef must have had an accident with his/her salt shaker. We took a few bites from one of the cheeks and left the other one untouched on the plate.

This is where a well-trained professional waiter should ask if something was wrong, but no, not this guy. We asked for the bill, and then I had to point out that the cheeks were so salty that they were inedible. "OK, I must check with the chef," was his abrupt reply. Within 30 seconds he was back with the full bill, an attitude, a ridiculously patronising reply, and no apology: "The chef says pork cheeks are like this." Really? So in Portugal you breed pigs with salty cheeks? To no avail I said that I cook pork cheeks myself, and we left without tipping.

Yes, Petisqueira 3 em pipa, we are just tourists passing through Faro, but when you serve food like these pork cheeks you are...

This is a very quaint and cozy restaurant. Good for a date night. They are open later than others on Saturday night.

The pork cheeks and creamy potatoes were really good. The salad was covered in oregano, and we didn’t recognize that the dressing was on a barrel next to our table. So the salad was eaten dry with just the oregano. Not good.

I don’t recommend the ceviche or the tiger prawn. The shrimp in the ceviche were still completely gray and transparent. We’ve had ceviche many times, but NEVER were the shrimp still visibly so raw. The tiger prawn was small for the price. And the rice that accompanied the prawn tasted like it was cooked in the same water as the prawn. It had a very strange flavor. The server didn’t bother asking why the rice wasn’t eaten. The staff are polite, but not friendly. If you’re looking for bubbly Portuguese people to interact with, you may want to try somewhere else. Also, we weren’t informed that they have desserts, nor did we see any dessert on the menu. We walked 10 minutes to find dessert elsewhere, and now I see here that this restaurant serves desserts that look really...

The restaurant gives the impression of being a small, family-run place with homemade food. Unfortunately, that’s not the case. Even though the dishes are beautifully presented, my fish was completely soaked in oil. I find the prices to be excessive for a restaurant in this kind of location. I’m a petite woman, paid €40, and still returned to my room hungry. I ordered red sangria but received white instead. I think they rely on customers from the hostel across the street, which explains the “tourist prices,” although even at beachside spots, the prices are lower and the food is...