Vasco Da Gama Restaurant

I used to live in New Bedford, and I love Portuguese food. Among Portuguese restaurants in South End of New Bedford, this place gives the best food, followed by Alianca. Usually, authentic Portuguese places in New bedford — Fall River area look like this place — a bar with a small dining room, with loud TVs. It’s not a place to take a date, and for that purpose, just don’t go to New Bedford (and if you live there, learn to cook at home!).
My favorite dishes are porco alentejana (pork and clam cooked together), octopus stew, and goat stew. For lunch, maybe bitoque (very thin steak with egg on top). If you’re not a fan of authentic Portuguese food, maybe you can try Antonio’s, where you can get all bastardized American-​friendly food (usually lighter flavor and less spicy than the real deal). If you are in Boston area, Atasca in Kendall Square, or any of the Portuguese place in Inman Square is somewhere in between. None of these places in Cambridge gives food as good as Vasco da Gama, in my view.
As other reviews say, if you go for a dinner at American dinner time, this place is usually very sparsely seated. That’s not a bad thing. I actually never saw another Asian in that place, and Americans are definitely the minority among their guests.
My problems with this place are: (1) their beer selection is so poor that I always ask for water (2) they use spray cleaners with very unpleasant smell to clean tables (3) their TV is too loud.

The neighborhood is not the best, and if such things bother you, you might not want to go here. Parking on the street was easy to find.
The dining room was small and the staff was watching a TV program on a TV that faced into the dining area. There was only one other table with people for dinner. The bar had a few locals.
The portions were large and on the inexpensive side, but the food quality was low.
New Bedford is packed with Portuguese restaurants, and there are so many better choices than this.

I recommend you avoid Vasco de Gamma. I ate there last night. It was empty, not a good sign at 7:30 on a Sat. night. Our waitress was sweet. I asked what she recommended and went with her rec, the paella. My dining companion had the seafood platter. Our dishes were the same but mine had a soupy sauce on the rice. Both dishes featured old tasting clams (4), shrimp (4) and lobster in fact the claws on both plates were empty. The tail meat was stuck to the shell and inedible on his plate. DInner with coke, one wine and two entrees with 20% tip was 37.00. Thank goodness the company saved the dinner.

This is a great authentic portuguese restaurant. I went with a coupon and there was no problem. The ambience is divey, but fitting. The food was fantastic. Really good quality and delicious bold flavors. The bread was grreeeeat as well.