Meh, Average Burgers @ Hamburgueria do Bairro, Cascais

Thomas and I have been to Hamburgueria do Bairro a handful of times, and the first time we visited, I remember us quite liking this restaurant.

Ever since, we've ordered it to the house at least a couple of times, and while I was never impressed with how the burgers travelled, in my mind, going in person would be considerably better.

Well we did go in person, recently, and took my brother and his husband with us.

I won't bury the lead here, because we were probably even more unimpressed with this restaurant in person than when we ordered their burgers to the house. But I'll get into why throughout this article because there are a slew of reasons.

I'll mention it here, at the start - but the wait staff was actually quite rude. While this is a common criticism of some restaurants in Cascais and Lisbon, I really didn't expect it here, in the heart of Cascais, at a burger restaurant that is pretty down to earth and laid back.

Sometimes the wait staff can appear "rude" when they are busy, and I assure you that's not my style to label as rude in the first place - but this restaurant was empty - quite literally without another soul in it - and still the staff was very short, snippy, and unpleasant toward us.

I'll assume it was an off day for the waitress and call it a day, but I also didn't like the fact that (again) the restaurant was completely empty, and yet it took forever to get any attention - we were pretty much ignored even though there was clearly no other work being done, and the waitress was simply at the desk averting her gaze for an unbelievable amount of time.

Eventually, I had to give up and go up to the desk to get her to assist us, something I had to do at least twice throughout the meal. Even then we had to wait around for ages for our order to be ready. Again, with no one else in the restaurant. Frustrating, but let's get into the food.

Two of us grabbed one burger, and two of us grabbed another, a little more than a little disappointed with any of the other offerings on the menu. While we all tried a little of each burger, it's safe to say that no one option was the victor, and we would all have been more satisfied if we could somehow have a hybrid of the two.

Let's start with burger one, called "Caco:" beef, arugala, brie cheese, fried tomato, and garlic butter.

Sounds good right? Not quite.

I'm not sure how they somehow made these ingredients taste so incredibly "meh" and average, but they managed. It was pretty bland for an ingredient list so flavour packed, messy to eat, and too heavy on the sauces (which, from what I remember, were way too sugary for my taste).

Though honestly, at least it came on a reasonably tasty sourdough bun, that was nothing to write home about, but not the absolute worst.

The absolute worst? The bun on the second burger: the "Duplex" if I remember correctly, a double cheeseburger style dish with: "beef, lettuce, tomato, and cheddar cheese" on the ingredient list.

In the bun department - painfully bad. The type of thing you buy in a grocery store in the processed section that sits there for ages and you only buy for convenience.

But again, the taste was bland, the toppings were average, and the burger fell apart as you tried to eat it, which is frustrating.

The burger patties themselves were alright, reasonably sized, also bland, mediocre (at best) taste wise, very home-cooked style, which is definitely my thing, but really and truly nothing all that special at all.

The fries were alright. They always come soggy when we order Hamburgueria do Bairro's burgers to the house (so do the buns!), so we were hoping it would be better in person. It wasn't much better, but they were edible, when they're often not when we order them to the house.

One brave soul - my brother - tried the sweet potato fries instead. These were not great. I don't remember liking them one bit and was grateful I didn't opt for them in the end.

Of the two burgers, Caco was probably the better of the two, but honestly there's no need for me to keep track as I definitely will not be grabbing burgers from here again.

Not even with tooth pulling. No thanks.

Quite frankly - and I really do mean this - I would rather take my business over to McDonalds or Burger King - which are really quite substantially better here than they are in the US or Canada or even the UK.

Heck, Burger King even offers some really great angus beef burgers.

But there's no real contest. With McDonalds or Burger King, obviously what I'm getting is way better priced, the burgers at least have some flavour to them, and at least I don't have to deal with absolutely abysmal service that takes forever to arrive.

Hard pass. There's plenty else in the area to eat, I'd definitely recommend avoiding this restaurant.

Nothing worth eating here, folks. But maybe that's why there were no other customers around.