Mauritânia Grill — Restaurant in Matosinhos

I dined alone for lunch and found my server, João, to be delightful in spite of a slight language barrier. His service was kind, timely, and helpful.

The restaurant has a bit of a formal feel, but it didn’t deter me from trying it out on my own. In fairness, there was no Couvert brought to the table without my permission, and really - a note to the other reviewers: know the county and practices in which you are dining! You have every right to decline the Couvert! As for the meal, the filetes de pescada 1/4 dose was more than enough for me, and the fish was delicious and fresh. The accompanying tomato rice was unremarkable; this and the feijoada that often accompany fish in Portugal are often just too soupy and bland for me. Again, it wasn’t a disappointment; I knew what to expect. I would suggest to the owner some better choices for wines by the glass with a restaurant of this caliber. I thought the prices were comparable and fair, except for the Irish Coffee I had after my meal. It was, indeed, the best I have had. But 9€ when my wine was 3€?!? That seems like robbery. Overall, a good experience, made even more so by the...

This restaurant embodies all that is deplorable about dinning in the Porto area. Highly overpriced starters that no one asked for is still tradition; a bill that is wrong and in excess; and a waiter that yells at other waiters. Very relaxing... While some of the food was good (the main course was fish fillets and "it" was good - more on this topic below), the starters we didn't order but still had were forgetful. Salpicao was just the worst you can probably have in the entire country. Gambas (giant shrimp) were actually disgusting. Getting back to the fish fillets: if you're planning on sharing this meal, don't. These are served at exactly one per person while its price would serve up to 5 anywhere else in the city. To sum up, coming here made us feel in stress (waiter), hungry (one miserable fillet) and cheated (bill). In a city of 1000s of restaurants don't waste your precious time...

We went for lunch late afternoon but the place stank of rotting fish so bad we decided to have a snack instead. Everything else was closed and we were killing time. The beef sandwich we ordered was tasty enough but the server was very confused about the beer. She said she didn’t have the kind we wanted but brought the one we wanted not realizing it was the right one. She was friendly enough but there were other male staff who stood around talking because we were the only customers and that didn’t add to the atmosphere. And all the water bottles were out on the table in the sun instead of shade, growing bacteria as they were refillable bottles-At least warm water instead of cold on a hot day. Lack of attention to detail, lack of basic knowledge of the server, staff standing around and the sickening rotting fish stink made this experience cringy and risky, especially...