restaurants

Restaurant Review: Venezuela, Praia Verde

Restaurant Venezuela - Poor

It is rare in Portugal to find any restaurant that is actually bad. Eating within 100 yards of the beach certainly increases your odds, but there is still a good chance that what you end up with will be perfectly satisfactory, or, in many cases very good.

We have had some of the tastiest plates of prawns and clams at very random beach cafes and often been really impressed. I suppose it was about time, in the peak of the summer season,

Restaurant Venezuela - Poor

Restaurant Venezuela – Poor

we ended up somewhere truly crap.

Restaurant Venezuela was it. If awards could be given for terrible service this place would definitely be in the running. Our experience was so laughably bad that I have decided to do this review in list format so as to remember everything!

Arrived at restaurant and, despite plenty of eye contact were ignored by giggly waiters for at least 15 minutes.

1. Waiter arrived to take drinks order.

2. After bringing drinks, waiter returns to ask what we want to eat. We suggest that to help us choose he brings us a menu. He brings one menu to share between five.

3. After another delay, different waiter comes to take order, after ordering one meal he wanders off, we call him back to explain that one meal between five is likely to be insufficient. He reluctantly takes order for all of us, which includes a half bottle of wine.

4. Different waiter appears with a tray of drinks which resembles the original drinks order that we have already been given and is sent away. The wine we ordered doesn’t appear.

5. Two of our meals appear, both with cold chips. We notice no one has cutlery.

6. We request cutlery – this takes over ten minutes to appear, by which time cold meals are even colder. Wine has still not appeared and is re-requested.

7. While two of our party struggle though their cold lunches a third plate appears, followed a few minutes later by a forth. Still no wine, which is re-requested each time we see a waiter (by this time we are on our third.)

8. Waiter appears to tell us that the wine we have been waiting for is not available. We order an alternative.

9. My food arrives, by which time everyone else has finished eating. STILL NO WINE.

10. Help myself to oil, vinegar and salt from another table.

11. After one more unsuccessful attempt at ordering the wine from yet another different waiter, we give up and request our bill. Sure enough, right near the top of the bill is the wine we still haven’t had.

12. At this point we complain, a lot, but the only concession made is that the waiter crosses the wine off the bill. We pay reluctantly, leaving no tip and vowing never to return.

A final word on this place. If you somehow end up in a situation where you HAVE to eat here, have pizza – it was hot and tasty and arrived relatively quickly, but, better still, try NOT to end up in a situation where you have to eat here.