Duk

This is the hotel restaurant at Hotel Turim Av Liberdade. My bf and I stayed at the hotel for 4 nights in early June and tried to eat here unsuccessfully two times before finally getting a table on our 3^rd try.
The first night, we were told it was too late and the kitchen was closed. (This was after 11 pm on a Wednesday.) The second time, it was raining outside, so the restaurant was packed (presumably with hotel guests who didn’t want to venture outdoors), and we were told the wait would be really long.
Finally, on the 3^rd try, we got seated, yay! Every time we had passed by, we had seen many people eating at this restaurant, so we had high hopes for this elegant place.
Unfortunately, the food fell short of our expectations. It’s kinda like the restaurant tried to be fancy-​schmacy, but then failed in the execution.
The garlic bread basket was okay, but after having some fabulous garlic bread in other establishments in Lisbon, I felt that the bread here just wasn’t as buttery or tasty.
The soup of the day was a green pea soup that didn’t look or taste very appetizing. I suppose green pea soup isn’t all that to begin with, but the bowl of yellowish-​green mush just didn’t do anything for my palate. I don’t know if they could have doctored it up with some garnish or something.
My bf ordered the beef empanadas as his appetizer, and they came out sad-​looking, like they weren’t fried very well. And he said they didn’t taste very good, either.
He ordered a pizza for dinner, and after a few minutes, the waiter came back and said they were missing one of the kinds of meat that was supposed to be on there. So my bf said it was fine, just leave it off. The pizza had a lot of raw sliced onions on it, and he said it wasn’t that good, either.
My salad was a warm shrimp salad with lettuce, arugula, red cabbage, and pineapple. Sounds yummy, no? The shrimp were kind of small, and the salad was okay, but nothing spectacular.
We both ordered chocolate mousse for dessert, and it came out looking like two bowls of chocolate pudding with slivered almonds on top. But when we dug in, it turned out to be pretty light and airy, so I guess it was a mousse after all.
It’s pretty sad when the best part of the meal is the dessert. We ate here on Saturday night because we were too tired after a long day of surfing to venture too far out for dinner… but in retrospect, perhaps we should have gone out to the Barrio Alto instead.

É um espaço que conheço ao almoço e que é frequentado, a essa hora, sobretudo por executivos que trabalham na zona. Tem pizzas óptimas e o risotto de cogumelos também é delicioso.
O serviço é extremamente simpático e cuidadoso, mas, quando toda a gente se lembra de ir ao Duk, a rapidez do serviço ressente-​se, o que pode ser aborrecido quando se almoça com tempo limitado. O que nunca consegui perceber é que dias são esses: tanto lá vou e parece que toda a Duque de Palmela ali foi desaguar, como não está ninguém.