Cantinho Algarvio — Restaurant in Lagos

Delicious regional food

What a busy place, people waiting for a table getting in the way of the servers, must be a good sign. A good number of tables outside in the middle of a narrow street with tables also inside for when the nights are a little colder. One of the few restaurants serving some more authentic dishes like rabbit, the main reason for our visit. However, my ‘better half’ won’t touch rabbit, she had one as a pet when she was little.

The servers where busy but attentive. We ordered a bottle of water, vinho de casa Branco and bread. We shared a starter of prawns fried in garlic (gamba fita com alho) which was light and not too oily like the Spanish Gambas Pil Pil.

The mains of Filetes de Pescada, fillets of pan fried fish served with French fries and salad garnish.

I had the rabbit and mushroom stew which arrived in a deep pot with lots of rich but light gravy served with boiled potatoes. No room for pudding, a complementary drink finished a delicious meal with a total cost of €41.95

Our second visit to this restaurant for a light meal as we had lunch out in Alte. Again it was very busy with groups waiting for tables, our server from the previews visit spotted us and seated us very quickly.

‘Not having “Bugs Bunny” tonight said our server, “no”, we ordered the usual bottle of water, a bottle of vinho de casa and bread. Our mains to share was a plate of baby fried squids (Lulinas Freitas com Alho) much to the surprise of our server as she’d explained they are not cleaned and still have the heads on, perfect bring them on, we have had them many times in Spain as Chipriones, they are delicious.

The next plate to share was described in English as fried Black pork, actually it’s slices of shoulder of pork from the black foot Iberican pig (Secretos Porco Preto) which is pan fried and considered a delicacy. The...

The fish with the passion fruit sauce was incredible. Unfortunately 3 members of our party all got horrible food poisoning from the chicken/ side salad. The chicken had a strange texture at certain moments although it seemed to be cooked just fine. Those who didn’t eat it were fine. We have been traveling together for a few days and have all had the same meals until that night. It is a shame because the service was excellent and that fish was incredible. I am thinking it was more a bad piece of chicken that went unnoticed as opposed to a cooking error.

Editing since I am unable to reply. I am sure it came from either the chicken or the side salad. That is the only things we ate that were different from those who did not get sick. I appreciate you checking with the suppliers. We are sure this occurred with the restaurant. As I mentioned before, we had all been eating the same up until this restaurant. That morning we all had simple croissants. It was a few hours after dinner at this establishment that people who ate the chicken and salad (even just a bite) became very ill. Those who did not try the chicken and only ate their own dishes were fine. The previous days we were all sharing food so this was the only difference. Again, I appreciate you checking with the suppliers. The chicken appeared to be cooked, some bites had a strange texture however as...

Let's start with what we ordered. We started with the "fried squid strips" then I ordered the monk fish kebab and my partner, the tenderloin kebab. Both dishes had prawns on the keb and a side cooked potatoes and some shredded cabbage, carrot and a quarter of a raw tomato.

The squid looked and tasted like they were from a freezer bag and came with a side of mayo for dipping. When one is dining on the coast, you would assume that the chef would source out fresh ingredients and cook them in a way that would compliment the food.

The prawns on the kebabs were mushy and overcooked which made sense because they were cooked on the same spit as tenderloin and monk fish (both which required more time than prawns to cook). Again, a little bit of cooking logic would have been useful here.

The salad and potatoes were just bad; flavorless and sloppily prepared. If a chef cannot properly cook potatoes and throw together a simple green salad, he's not worth his weight.

At the end of the day, we were sort of asking for it dining in a heavily touristed area. The restaurant was packed and I'm sure they don't need to worry about quality, over maximizing profit, because they will be full every night regardless.

I gave it 2 stars because the server was nice and we enjoyed the wine. Aside from that, we would have been better off grabbing a donair...