Café 13 de Maio — Restaurant in Vila Nova de Gaia

We had high hopes for this small local restaurant, even though the prices were on the expensive side. At those rates, you expect fresh, high-quality food and good service. Initially, everything seemed reasonable—until the main courses arrived. My wife ordered sardines, but only after all the other dishes were served did the owner inform us they were out. Instead, she offered a different dish, which we reluctantly accepted. The real issue, however, was when the replacement arrived—a fish portion meant for two people, which was partially undercooked. When we pointed out that we hadn’t ordered such a large portion, the owner and her staff insisted that we had and refused to take responsibility. Worse, they charged us 70 Euros for the fish! They price by weight, not by unit, but there's no transparency about how much the fish actually weighs. To top it off, as we were leaving, we saw fresh sardines being grilled—after being told they were unavailable. Do yourself a favor and avoid this tourist trap. There are far better and more honest places to eat, with better food and fair pricing. A restaurant run with such dishonesty shouldn’t...

Watch out for paying extra for stuff you don't particularly want! The food was decent enough - grilled Bream and Sardines with a basic salad and some very oily potatoes. However when we sat down, we were given bread (with a one-person plastic pot of naff Primula style cheese, and a one-person plastic pot of butter), some olives and three bacalhau fritters, which was all tasty enough and we understood that we'd pay for it as cover charges. What really took the proverbial though, was charging a euro each for the tiny amount of butter and of naff processed cheese spread. The bread was over 2€ and was very average. The cover charge items alone came to more than 10€ which is a rip off. I wish we had read the reviews before...

Don’t come here if you aren’t Portuguese - they clearly weren’t happy with us being Americans- we were very happy and excited to try this place out. Our server was very cold and borderline rude. They served us the grilled calamari UNCLEANED - guts still inside. I asked around after and everyone was shocked that they did that. They knew exactly what they were doing. Based on some of the other reviews, it’s evident that they don’t want foreigners patronizing their business. Oh well - literally every other person we’ve dealt with in...