PSI — Restaurant in Lisbon

We had high expectations after seeing the awesome rating of this restaurant. Unfortunately our expectations weren't met. I took the Korean Tofu Bowl menu, including the daily soup and a PSI tea, which by the way costs the exact same amount as if you take the single Korean Tofu Bowl without the menu option. The soup felt watered down and the flavor was quite indistinguishable. We couldn't make our minds up what the soup was made of. My main impression was a mix of grounded spices like Muscat and common Curry powder. No recommendation on that one. The tea on the other hand was surprisingly tasty, even though unexpectedly sweet, with a scent and taste of cinnamon – five stars for the tea. Now the main dish: Korean Tofu Bowl. As something that is advertised as Korean it really missed that Korean taste at all. It contained three slices of Tofu though. The menu also tells you it has kale and wakame salad with it ... Well yes, it has two slices of kale and three (!) small wakame leafs (check the picture guys). The other part is just simple salad and rice. Nothing wrong with that though. What really ruined the second half of the dish was the amount of soy sauce. The whole bottom of the plate was filled with soy sauce – which is good to dip the tofu in but not the best for salad and especially bad for rice. The rice just soaks up all the soy sauce while the salad is rinsed with it. Everything just tasted like soy sauce (you cannot love soy sauce that much to let it override all other flavors!) Even after finishing the dish there was still enough soy sauce on the plate to finish a whole set of sushi with. Here is my recommendation to the restaurant: Please serve the soy sauce or at least the rice in a separate bowl like all the Asian restaurants do (they do it for a reason). That would have made the whole experience so much better. I really appreciate the effort of running a healthy vegetarian restaurant, I like the cute decorations and the location of the place, therefore I give two stars. Maybe I just had an unlucky dish or the chef is freshly in love. Always room for improvement –...

Unfortunately on our visit the front garden of the restaurant was being dug up for some pretty major redesigning/pipe work but lurking behind the rather unsightly building site was a very stylish glass walled restaurant with a nice surround terrace where we bagged one of the tables.

We were instantly leapt upon by the quickest service staff I've ever come across which was a recurring theme though out our meal. Sharing our single menu we were finally ready to place an order on the third time of being asked.

The swiftly arriving shared juice was a lovely balanced, refreshing cocktail. The vegetable samosa's to start were just fine but nothing to write home about and were swiftly followed by the main courses.

I ordered the Goan curry which apparently had 14 spices in it but it was so mild as to overwhelmed by the cocunut in the sauce, it really was lacking in any sort of "oooomph" whether this was to appeal to the generally chilli adverse Portuguese palette I'm not sure but it had very little relation to genuine Indian food. It wasn't unpleasant just rather bland. Oddly enough though my German companion really enjoyed it much more than her main and as I found her Korean bowl much tastier we did a swap and consequently both ended up happy by accident rather than design.

I don't know whether the waiter was trying to turn the table round but we did find his service rather over attentive but that also could be because fast, efficient service is often an exception in Lisbon. There certainly was no hanging about!

I wasn't wowed by the restaurant on the whole, though far from disappointed and I will return when the construction work is done to give it a second chance as if the food, which I can see has potential, can live up to the setting and stylish design it...

I guess the good reviews set the bar already high plus the price range is quite above average. I'm sorry I have to say this but the flaws sum up. Many details didn't make a good impression. Sure, Saturday nights a the busiest ones and sure a waiter can forget your starter. Sure, in busy times your ordered drink comes twice but one's forgotten, sure it happens that the staff cannot fill up toilet paper, of course the special of the day may run out on the evening and of course sometimes it takes an hour before you can start to eat (we had reservations). Yes, it is a question of individual feeling if the live music is too loud or not (couldn't communicate though directly next to the musicans). But when then the main dishes kind of disappoints you for 10 EUR you may not be eager to give the place a second chance. Didn't get any sorry for all the...