Almada 331 — Restaurant in Porto

Be warned! This place is the closest I got to highway robbery in Portugal!

As mentioned by many, the owner is very friendly and will most likely offer you a shot of port wine when you’ll leave. However, from an objective perspective, this doesn’t make the poor cuisine any better. We took salmon sashimi with grilled vegetables (15 €)… unfortunately, they were out of grilled vegetables… I honestly don’t know how this can happen when you run a restaurant. Veggies! Not imported Waygu steak… This being said, they politely and promptly let us know after ordering that the veggies were missing and offered to replace this by a salad. Fair enough. What was our surprise when we received the said sashimi. It came along on a separate plate with a very bland salad on the side (lettuce and cherry tomatoes…) exempt of seasoning, but olive oil and lemon juice… and the said sashimi, wrapped in (not even toasted) sesame seed was accompanied by a soy sauce without personality. We also ordered the pork filet plate (18,5 €). I could have got the same dish from a cafeteria at half the price and twice the size anywhere in town… more than basic. The taste of the sauce was good, but nothing to call his mother about. Finally, we took a salmon salad (18,5 €) that we were told was on also the menu. This ended up being the same bland green salad with moreless 7-8 small pieces of raw salmon on top… again olive oil and lemon juice as sole ingredients to provide some kind of punch to the dish. I have to mention however that there were a little bit of feta cheese (few micro crumbles) and some magical sesame seed that apparently makes a dish good, fancy and… justifiable of a profitable price markup.

(I also didn’t mentioned the famous Portuguese couverts. Two little piece of bread with olive oil/balsamic/bit of dry thyme (their signature touch!) for 2,5 euros. Yeah, paid 5 euros for 4 tiny pieces of bread and the oil coming along with it)…

Trust me STAY AWAY of this place unless you want to overpay for food that tries to be something that it’s not, which is good and tasty. Textbook definition of pickpocketing!

Steer clear and go the closest cafeteria!

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Following owner response, I would only add that I would’ve given my impressions to any server or even him if someone would’ve asked me, but nobody asked us if we were of ok, or if the food was good… unfortunately, it didn’t happen.

Quite funny how he does not try to defend his cuisine, but prefer ridiculing a customer leaving a somewhat “constructive” critic that he...

In my culture, when a restaurant offers you something to drink while you wait outside in the line, they don't charge you for it, it's on the house. But it can be a different culture, who knows, so let's say that's ok :) We were told it was going to be a 2min wait. When the table was finally ready (20+ min after), the waitress told us her boss prefers to personally take guests to their tables (which in principle it's very nice of him) but he was too busy, so we were asked to continue waiting. We finally were able to sit down, shortly after, the waitress came and put some appetizers in front of us, and although we could always say no thanks, I found it quite a pushy way of "selling". We said ok, even though it might not have been our first choice. Thought of pointing it out, in case you, like us, are uncomfortable with situations like these. On the menu there is a "chef's special" option, so I asked what was it, the answer was "everything here is special, so no chef's special option available"... Not sure why they put it on the menu, but ok. We ordered spaghetti with shrimp and Codfish with cream, which was ok-ish. We probably had too high expectations given the reviews. In short, our experience was not a 4+ star...

Beautiful small bistro , just the sort of local place you yearn to find when travelling. The owner, Fernando, has a big personality and really makes the place come alive, introducing new guests to the other tables and creating a dinner party vibe. There are only 12 covers inside and more tables outside. So it was very intimate (see pic') and we loved that you were right next to the kitchen. The menu is small but with enough variety to please most palates - 3 starters and 7 mains with a single vegetarian dish in each. As a veggie, my heart sank a little when Fernando said the dish was ratatouille but what came out was the most delicious vegetable and rice (pasta also available) dish, full of flavour and fresh ingredients. My partner had the duck, also delicious. Wine is limited to just the house white or red with standard and Reserve option of each. Service was warm, friendly and with much humour from all of the staff. The practice of bringing a dessert, port, and liquers to the table unbidden was unusual but we took advantage of all three and the bill only came to €35 a head. A bargain for the great food and atmosphere we enjoyed. Would definitely visit again...