My wife booked this online.
She later received a text with a link that seemed to have no relation to the restaurant asking her to confirm the booking but has the date and time of the booking on it.
Thinking rationally she decided to click the link, why else would she be getting a text to confirm a booking that she had made.
The booking was thus confirmed.
Shortly after she received an email asking her to confirm the booking. It was as though they were asking "are you really sure you want to eat here". We should have read the signs....
We arrived in our black hire car and were seated by a pleasant woman who gave us some menus. I was wearing a shirt, and my wife a new dress. My daughter was sporting a blue tie dye t-shirt and dark shorts.
After about ten minutes of sitting there patiently waiting for someone to offer us beverages or take our food order, a woman arrived. I'll call her a waitress but I'm not sure if that's allowed in the woke society we live in.
She spoke good English, which is useful as we have limited Portuguese in our vocabulary.
We ordered some cod tempura, some ribs, 2x sweet potato fries, 1x Dorado, 1x regular fries, 1x peppered stake - medium. With legumes. Also some bread.
What arrived was some bread, with some olives, buttery stuff and some carrots which we didn't order. But with the carefree abandon of a holiday maker we scoffed it anyway. It was nice.
The cod tempura starter, 6 (I think) deep fried balls of salt held together with flakes of fish and some pleasant dips. We shared these - my daughter refused to eat hers, my wife elected to only have one. I was forced to eat 4 - my mouth now lined with salt infused oil and an unshakable urge to shrivel up like a slug does when you pour salt on it; instead I drank half a pint of Heineken.
Thinking nothing more of it, the mains arrived. The waitress (incidentally not the one that took our order, but the one that seated us) gave the impression that she was well aware that we didn't order 3x sweet potato fries but tried to palm them off on us anyway. I politely refused and told her what she already knew, which was to fetch the standard fries instead. 75% of my way through my peppered steak the fries arrived. It wasn't ideal but I'm no diva.
The wife was discouraged by the volume of bones in her fish "why can't anyone fillet a fish these days" she pondered but soldiered through. My daughter bemoaned the lack of BBQ sauce on her ribs, queried why there was only meat on one side of the ribs, picked out the veiny bits and downed tools in protest.
Once the fries had cooled down I ate them. They were salty. Once the legumes had cooled down, I ate some of them. They were salty. Once I was sure my daughter wasn't going to eat her ribs I had a couple. They were salty and lacked BBQ sauce which was probably a good thing cos that would have been salty too no doubt.
Once it was clear we had finished our meal the (second) waitress again graced us with her presence asked us how our meal was. Explained how salty it all was, to which she replied "for you maybe" as though I were attending some sort of salty food eating event and had come last. She explained that nobody else had complained, which as we know, means I was wrong and she has evidence to prove it. I told her the only thing that wasn't salty was the peppercorn sauce. A joke that failed to lighten the mood.
My wife sat with her arms crossed, I argued with my daughter about the price of a sorbet.
We got the bill for this overpriced and revolting meal, and left in our black hire car.
My wife was so looking forward to eating here. It was a massive disappointment and we should have read the signs of the persistence to confirm our booking.
The decor was nice. If you want a meal that will give you a migraine from the content of the salt in a nice environment and high attention paid to booking confirmation, go here - you won't be disappointed (unless you value ever being able to taste anything...
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