Casa de Linhares, Lisbon

It was downright awful. I tried not to have very many expectations because I did not know much about Fado or this restaurant, it was way below anything I could have expected. The water was in the glasses and the bread was on your plate before we got in. The bread was tough and the hor deurve's were greasy and expensive. the entrees were ok, but simple so hard to mess up. The main course was more than disgusting. We had codfish with coriander rice and spinach. The fish was breaded, possible to enhance the taste I suppose but it didn't help. The fish was tough and no good, the rice was ok but the spinach was also very poor in taste. Others of us had rice and duck but it turned out to be mostly rice with grease from pork sausages and very little duck. We thought perhaps they had a bad day, or maybe we had picked the wrong dish even perhaps we are just spoiled when it comes to our taste. But you could tell the others in the restaurant were having a bad food experience as well. The music on the otherhand was great. The singers have great voices but the experience was already ruined by the food. One of us had a dame blanche with vodka. The vodka was black! And it too tasted nothing like a dame blanche should taste. The only good thing was the coffee. When the bill came it was unbelievably overpriced. We paid more than we had all week for food and it was disgusting! We were very happy to leave. Perhaps there are better fado restaurants. But for this one to be reviewed so well by so many newspapers and critics, I can not comprehend how that is possible. The food is horrible!