SCAMMERS! If I could give this place 0 stars, I would.
Our party of 4 was looking for a different restaurant a few doors down (Taverna Alfacinha) for a super late lunch at around 3:30 on a Friday. When we first arrived at Taverna, a man told us that the location only did seafood rice, and if we wanted to order other menu items, we would need to go down a few doors to their second dining area. We weren't sure if we were being scammed to go to a different restaurant or not but when he showed us the menu, it was identical, so we went with him. I did notice that the other restaurant had an 'Adega Mó' sign inside and I was skeptical. But we were hungry, it was late, and since the menu was the same, I just believed the guy that it was the same restaurant. Turns out it wasn't, and it wasn't confirmed until after the fact, when I posted a review under the original restaurant and they said it has happened before where Adega Mó steals their customers. Judging by their food, I can see why they have to resort to dishonest tactics to get customers. We had:
-Salad - this had lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, and corn. It's just a salad but we really needed some greens since we had been eating pretty heavily the entire weeklong trip.
-Seafood rice - it takes about half an hour for them to make. It had a good amount of seafood, especially crab, which I liked. It also had shrimp, squid, and clams. I didn't really like the rice itself. It was way too saucy. I was thinking it would be like a paella, but it was more like a soupy stew with rice and seafood. They also brought the rice from outside, which was another reason why we believed it was the same restaurant because we thought they were bringing it over from the other place
-Grilled octopus - we ate octopus almost every other day while in Portugal and didn't meet an octopus we didn't like. Until now. They don't give you just the tentacle but instead, they give you an entire octopus that is uncut. So we were sitting at the table and trying to hack at this thing with a knife, which was very difficult because the octopus was chewy. The only really edible parts were the thinner part of the tentacles, but even those were pretty chewy. Definitely was not fresh
I wish we had the chance to actually eat at the restaurant we wanted to, and not this tourist trap run by scam artists. Just beware, if this happens to you! read more