Alegria, Good Mood Food — Restaurant in Lagoa

Asian food is hard to find in Algarve so when I heard about a Thai woman with a restaurant, we made a special trip to a town we don't usually frequent just to try it.

The service was superb! Great staff who have a real concept of service and hospitality.

The food was a little disappointing, however. Very few Thai ingredients in the food, which isn't surprising considering how difficult it is to source south east Asian food, and I'm sure it's frustrating to cook your food with the wrong ingredients. It was a bit of a letdown all the same.

The chicken satays weren't really satay. Just vaguely flavoured kebab basically, with a side of peanut sauce. And you only get two.

Green curry was really well flavoured. Not enough heat though. One server did warn us ahead of time that although some dishes should be hot/spicy, for reasons of the general public being spice-adverse, they've had to tone them all down. Which I understand. Brits (the main tourists in Carvoeiro) are notoriously bad at handling any sort of heat in their food. So I do get it. But it's too bad. The flavour was all there. Sadly, no Thai ingredients (bamboo shoots, etc) meant the usual veg in the curry was replaced with typical American/English-style carrots and broccoli. We opted not to have those.

Pad Thai was pretty bad though. It had an overwhelming taste of ketchup. It was so sweet I had to pour green curry on it just to tone it down. When I saw the plate, it looked like authentic tamarind pad thai, but the taste was a dead giveaway. It's once again unfortunate that the Western world's palate has become so accustomed to these fast foodish takes on Asian foods that if the authentic stuff was sold, they would complain. Raw carrots and purple cabbage were interesting choices of veg... no mint/thai basil, bean sprouts, or chili pepper. I don't know why restaurants insist on filling pad thai with vegetables, other than because it looks prettier? I'd rather no superfluous vegetables and real flavours, and have it not look as nice. And I know lemons are way cheaper here, but no lime? Not very Thai.

I usually judge a Thai place on its pad thai as it is pretty ubiquitous, so unfortunately, this place fell short. Plating was nice, though. Bright, appealing, and colourful.

I have had outstanding Thai food in tiny Norwegian villages, so I know technically it's possible to source ingredients/make authentic-tasting Thai food in Europe. I just have yet to stumble across a place that does it here.

Also, the price point is very high for what you get. Portion sizes are small for the price. It seemed very expensive, but it is basically a tourist beach town. Everywhere else in town is probably the same.

I hope one day to return and the palate of tourists and ingredients...

Absolutely hidden gem! If you like Thai food, you should definitely visit Algeria. We had spent the day at the beach and we were looking for something different compared to all the other tourist restaurants in the main part of town.

It’s fair to say, the food here is definitely cooked fresh and cooked with fresh ingredients. The staff welcomed us and offered us a seat outside, the older gentleman and the German waiter were really lovely and had great suggestions on food, and options.

For starters we shared a bread basket with butter (that came without any extra charge), with some chicken wings that came with a sweet and sour glaze.

For mains I had the Penang Beef Curry and my partner had the chicken yellow curry, which is a sweeter and lighter curry dish. Both curries came presented with rice and the food tasted really good.

We’d really recommend coming here if you want to try something new and some fresh food with fantastic service to match.

We were also given a night cap on the house which was a really classy touch from the staff. Thank you for a...

I've been on the Portuguese Algarve for 7 days and my body was starting to reject food and drink.

That was until I visited the fabulous Alegria restaurant. Ran by Marco and his wife Bee, who are probably the greatest duo to work this corner of the world together since Xavi and Iniesta ran the show in Barcelona all those years ago.

My partner and I shared the satay. The chicken was both delicious and flavoursome while the sauce was a taste that will stay with me until my dying day on this earth.

My main course was the lamb massaman. The lamb was cooked to such perfection that it melted in my mouth like a white magnum ice cream would on a baking hot summers day.

It was complimented with a refreshing gin and tonic, a glass of beautiful house verde and a complimentary glass of baileys after we decided we couldn't possibly squeeze in a desert.

All in all a most enjoyable experience and I, for one, can't wait to...