Porto Douro — Restaurant in Birmingham

A fabulous and authentic portuguese restaurant. Went there for dinner party of 4 with a child. My partner is portuguese so she had a lot of suggestions. However, I went with classic Frango peri-peri with rice, was told its busy so rice and chips not possible. In addition, we ordered peri peri chicken bites, calamari and meat croquettes, 1st one with blue cheese dip (surprisingly not repulsive!) And others with garlic aioli (legendary). They were truly authentic and delicious. We also ordered a main with oven baked octopus and roast potatoes and a portuguese rice-based chicken main dish. We all loved our mains which were big portions each enough for 2, we got takeaway boxes tho. Being Indian and crazy for the authentic peri-peri spice, Elena didn't hesitate to get me not one but two bowls of peri peri sauce for the chicken. The spice loving south Indian in me was enjoying like a kid eating icecream. Speaking of which hats off to Elena, she was amazing with us and the child, we truly appreciate your hospitality and warmth. I'd love to specially dedicate this paragraph to the kid-friendlyness of the restaurant, it's a rare quality yet very desired for families. They provide a set kids menu with various choices, portions are adult sized though. They also provide colours and a there's a maze, join the dots art and scrabble? and other stuff on the kids menu that your kid can decorate or be busy with, a wonderful thought to making the restaurant family friendly. 10/10 Complimentary port wine and Pastel de nata, love you guys for that. Port wine took me back to Goa (former portuguese-indian territory) and the pastry was so soft warm and delicious custard in multiple layers of pastry melting in the mouth... sorry I lost track of how to describe this marvel, simply said, you will love it. To summarize, I'm glad I got to avenge the sub-standard peri-peri I've eaten in N*ndos, you know what...

We visited this restaurant earlier this year when it was located in Acock's Green and I posted the following positive review "A hidden gem! A great little restaurant in an unexpected location. Terrific menu choice and good quality food. Service was slightly disappointing but friendly enough. Good atmosphere overall although live music was quite loud at times and made table conversation difficult. We will certainly be returning before too long".

Last month, we visited the restaurant in its new Solihull location. I was one of a party of seven. My meal was eventually served to me more than 20 minutes after main courses had been presented to all of my fellow guests. The chicken Piri Piri was extremely dry and tasteless as though it had been left under a heater for the 20 minutes. After the main courses were finished, glasses of port were brought to our table. The server spilled two glasses down the back of my neck and onto my beige trousers!

An apology was offered and I was given paper towels to clean up. I chose to go to the rest room to do this and when I returned I found that my unfinished drink had been taken away! All in all, the evening was a disaster for me although 4 of the other 6 guests at our table were satisfied with their meals. I was not offered anything to compensate for the drink spillage etc.

The following day I sent an email to the owners. No reply! A week later I sent a further gentle reminder inviting their comments. No reply so far! It is now 3 weeks since our visit and it is clear that the restaurant has no intention of replying. Contrary to what I said in my earlier review, I very much doubt that we will be returning...

Unfortunately, as much as we wanted to love it here, we did not have a great experience at Porto Duoro. My partner and I visited on Christmas Eve with a table booked at 16:45 thinking we would have plenty of time to enjoy our meal before anywhere near closing time.

Sadly we were completely rushed, we sat down to eat and our bread and olive starter arrived as we ordered a bottle of red wine. As we had literally one bite of our starter, our mains arrived - this is within TEN minutes of sitting down and arriving at the restaurant. My creamy chicken was nice but partner paid £35 for a fillet steak which was very average and bland - no spices or seasoning used at all. The sides were again bland and easily something you could knock up at home, a plain basic salad, plain rice and a watery spinach dish. Within 5 minutes of finishing our dinner, my dessert arrived which again was ok but flavourless, topped with a stale biscuit so old it was bendable without snapping! The ‘mulled wine’ was just hot wine, no cinnamon or spice flavour to it whatsoever however the manager did remove it from our bill. Nonetheless, he seemed eager to leave from the get go and we managed to compete 3 courses within 45 mins, I have never been so rushed. We had pretty much 3/4 of the bottle of wine left as we’d not been able to sit and relax and enjoy the evening given how rushed it was.

Despite spending £100, we had a 5/10 meal with little flavour along with a 5/10 experience. We had a young female waitress who was lovely however and made a very disappointing experience much better. We won’t come back sadly, despite really wanting to like it here. Premium prices for...