The Portuguese Fisherman — Restaurant in South River

We went to this place a couple of years ago before Hurricane Sandy hit it. We went back tonight for our 15th wedding Anniversary. What a big difference, the place is awesome. Very well decorated, spacious, and authenic. They remodeled and did a Fantastic job with decor. The food was great although it could've used more salt. Let me give you a breakdown our night. We were seated almost instantly which was great especially on a Friday night. We were given menu and our waiter was great. Actually we had a couple of people waiting on us which was interesting. We ordered Caldo Verde for a soup (this is a popular soup in Portuguese cuisine. The basic traditional ingredients for caldo verde are potatoes, kale, olive oil and salt) it was a little watery, usually its much thicker although its a soup it should be thicker since is made from potateos. So I would recommend to add less water and less Salt, it was a little salty. Complimentary salads came out ( they were good except that after they washed the salad they didn't let it dry so our plate was full of green water) they were ok. We ordered fried calamari for appetizers. This one needed seasoning and salt. The flower they were covered in was flaky but they had no taste how sad that was. Also the sauce should've been some kind of marinra sauce but is was more like a pizza / spaghetti sauce (that didn't work at all). I ordered the Carne Porco Alentejana. That was good, it actually reminded me of Portugal. I enjoyed every bite. My wife ordered grilled shrimp but they brought here stuffed grilled shrimp. We told the waiter that it was wrong and he was very sorry took it back and gave her what she wanted (that was excellent) they gave her the right food and it she enjoyed it. We couldn't finish everything since we ate almost all of the delicious Portuguese bread they had on the table with the Garlic butter spread. The portions are generous and very well presented. For dessert I had a Bica or expresso and my wife was too stuffed. It was a shame because I wanted to try some of there Tiramasu. I guess I am going to have try it next time. I cant wait to go back and try the other stuff on the menu. I would reccommend this place for the food and the price. It a great place to go for...

My wife & I ate there many times several years ago and recall liking it the time. Decided to try it again after a long absence but was very, very disappointed to say the least. The restaurant was extremely noisy even considering it was half empty during our entire time there. The extremely loud music upon entry & in the extremely small restrooms was horrendous and excessively loud as well. The service was extremely poor. Our server only stopped by once when we were more than half way through the meals that were delivered by a busboy to ask if everything was ok. To make a long story short, I never received the soup I ordered, The Fisherman's Platter I ordered was supposed to contain Sole fish. Instead, I believe I got some cheaper fish, perhaps Flounder. I discussed this matter with the manager who insisted that it was indeed Sole. I'm not much of a meat eater and basically only order seafood when dining out. That being said, I know the difference between Sole and a cheaper fish! The only conclusion I can come to is (1), the supplier lied to the manager or chef or (2), the chef accidentally or intentionally gave me the wrong fish or (3), the manager purposely lied to me. I strongly suspect the latter! Either way, I was the loser as the manager refused to make any adjustments for my entree. I only ate one small piece of the imitation Sole and took the rest home for perhaps my son to eat. If he doesn't want it, I will throw it out for I will not touch it again! I don't mind Flounder but this fish didn't even taste like that either. If that fish was indeed Sole, it was/is the worst Sole I ever tasted! Finally, my wife ordered the 7 oz. Lobster Tail meal and rated it barely satisfactory. She also ordered a Coke or Pepsi but instead got some cheap imitation thereof, most likely some barely acceptable Cola variation eventhough the check plainly indicated "Coke" The manager did remove the $4.00 charge for the original & 1 refill. Needless to say that based on this horrible experience, my wife & I will never dine...

The wait staff. The food. The prices for said food. It seemed as if they found the wait staff from a mix of folks who were just walking down the street and the dishwashers. They were uneducated about the menu and unprofessional. Our server asked multiple times who got what, and they're only two of us We were given our salads, our food, our water, and our bill by multiple servers only seeing your server when he came back to ask questions about what we ordered and who got what you should have written it down. We ordered the paella Valencia I've worked as a chef in a Mediterranean restaurant for over 10 years and I know that dish very well what came out was not paella Valencia but yellow rice soup with bland chorizo, dirty old shellfish and something that was supposed to be lobster but was absolutely, positively not. If you cannot make a staple dish such as paella correctly, in a Portuguese restaurant, then there is no hope for you at all. It is one of the simplest dishes to get correct, if you actually try. I have absolutely no problem paying any amount of money for good food but what I received that day at the Portuguese Fisherman, they should have paid me to eat it. For the record our paella was $25 per person. If it had been correct appetizing tolerable or many other words that you would use when ordering food then $25 probably would have been a little steep for the portion size but not too much for what we received. In closing all I can say is spend your money...