Aquario Marisqueiro - Porto

The restaurant was listed in Frommers as a moderately priced seafood restaurant, which is exactly what we were looking for. It was a rainy night, and as we entered the restaurant, we were surprised by its lack of atmosphere. Blank white walls, bright lights. But a man greeted us warmly and took our wet umbrellas from us and put them away. Then he led us to a table. We were sharing everything we ordered, and the waiter, who was excellent, split everything tableside. For entres, we ordered octopus and squid. The bread was excellent, as was the cheese they served at the beginning. We ordered mussels in a butter garlic sauce.They were much larger than what we 're used to, and the mussel was not cut from the shell, but they were excellent. The shells had a green tint to them and were quite thin. The waiter, who did not speak English, was very pleased when he saw us dipping bread into the mussel juices and truly enjoying it. Then another man, maybe the manager, came out of the back to talk to the customers. He spoke excellent French, and then English to us, although, as he said, he was a bit out of practice speaking English. Most of the tourists are not English speaking. In fact, Americans are quite a novelty. Anyway, he saw our genuine enjoyment of the food and interest in it, and spoke to us at length. He gave me the recipe for the dessert we tried a cake called Cake of Heaven in translation, made of spaghetti squash. . . We conversed for a long time about the process of preparing and then baking it, with him even looking up words in his dictionary in the back. This cake was served beautifully, one piece cut in half with fanned out slices of mango to accompany it. My husband, who is a seafood lover, noticed a rice and seafood dish being served to some people, and asked about it. The aroma, even after we were finished eating dessert, overwhelmed him, and we were saying that we would return for that dish. Then we asked for the check. According to Frommer 's, they accept credit cards. As my husband placed his credit card on top of the check, Jose, the man who had been talking to us, tells us that they can 't accept credit cards because they are going through some kind of system change. And without asking us to pay cash, he just said, When you return on Saturday, pay me then. This incident totally blew us away Jose showed us that there are places in this world where human beings still trust one another. (Needless to say, we returned on Saturday night to a reserved table for us, and had another wonderful and adventure filled evening.

Classical Portuguese restaurant. Excellent service, good prices, generous portions. The cod fish is very good and made in several different ways. Well located, just off Av dos Aliados.

Our hotel attendant told us she would recommend this restaurant to us over four others so we took her advice and dined here. I ordered grilled polvo (octopus). It tasted very tender came with well cooked asparagus small roasted potatoes. Olive oil and garlic slivers were drizzled all over it. My husband ate veal rumpsteak served with thinly cooked potato chips . When my husband asked for garlic slivers with his meal also, the kitchen happily supplied it.For dessert I had a Portuguese version of creme brulee and my husband had chocolate mousse. Tapas before the meal included crusty bread as well as a plate with perfectly fresh melon with proscuitto. Price before tip was under 45 Euros.

Aquario Marisqueiro, Neptuno and Escondidinho restaurants were indicated by a desk staff lady at Grande Hotel do Porto as places where to eat seafood nearby the hotel, as alternatives to the hotel own restaurant (Pedro II) and to Abadia do Porto, that are both very good. But we were disappointed with Aquario Marisqueiro: food, service and atmosphere were average, at best. Prices are similar to Pedro II and Abadia do Porto, that are incomparably superior restaurants. Porto certainly offers a lot of better places to eat than Restaurante Aquario Marisqueiro.