Casa cartola — Restaurant in Porto

Food was excellent all around and the service was great and attentive. The guy who runs the place speaks English decently enough and the decor is great, too.

The only problem is that they deliver fried olives and garlic bread to the table before you order anything, and then charge 3.50 euro for each item. While the items are clearly listed with those prices on the menu provided, it's extremely dodgy and shady business practices to coerce extra money from tourists.

Speaking of, there were no locals, besides the server and cook, in the place, but instead entirely tourists. Maybe sketchy business practices is why they don't have regular local customers?

We're seasoned travelers, having been going around the world in the past 15 months, and not once, in any country we've been to, has any restaurant tried this scheme on us until the night before we head back to the states.

In fact, the only other country that had tourist traps that pulled this move was in Greece, where they give you bread and water when you sit down, but charge a much more reasonable rate of 1 euro each.

3.50 euro for olives and another for bread is highway robbery prices, inconsistent with any other restaurants around, and clearly shows dishonest intent with the gesture to squeeze extra money out of people.

They do give you a shot of some port wine at the end of the meal - and don't charge for it. But it just makes the place feel scummier, like they're trying to get you a little drunk, so you'll look the other way on the olives and bread.

The food was great, though, and if the business weren't so scummy in their ways, they'd probably have a lot of success. Being cheap and dishonest shouldn't be rewarded, though, so we'll certainly...

After a disappointing experience at Mariscar yesterday, I changed my strategy today and ventured out of the tourist areas into a residential part of Porto. I tried a local spot with a 4.7 rating and over 300 reviews, and it was surprisingly affordable and delicious.

Shrimp and clams cost only 8 euros here, compared to 22 euros just for clams at Mariscar, and the flavor was superb.

I noticed some Google Reviews mentioned unexpected charges for fried garlic bread and olives that weren't listed as extras. It's like when you ask for water at a restaurant and they bring you a bottled one that costs—basic knowledge, right? But those fried olives were actually quite good, not too oily and without the usual bitterness of olives.

The shrimp was excellent, the pig's ears were crispy without any off-putting smell, and paired perfectly with onions. Unfortunately, the clams were still a bit bland, but that seems to be a common issue with European clams, even in the UK.

In summary, if you want to avoid touristy spots and not overpay, this restaurant is a...

Limited menu. They must’ve realised we were British and fleeced us as we were given garlic bread and fried olives(yuk), which we thought were complimentary. I can’t eat gluten so half was wasted but we were still charged for this. Why charge us for something we didn’t order. Everything was swimming in oil. It wasn’t busy but we felt we had to leave around 10.15 as they started turning lights off! It shuts at 11pm! We asked for sangria which was white and looked like it had been assembled with their eyes closed. Also my fruit salad was just apple orange and banana chopped badly and stuffed in a glass with decayed mint that had holes in.

Very disappointed they took advantage of the fact we were tourists. Shame because the place is cosy. Unfortunately they have MTV allaying in the screen very tacky videos which isn’t ideal when you want a nice dinner. Worse place we ate...