Cantinho da Madelena – Restauração

I am Swedish, well traveled and quite dainty when it comes to eating out. I’ve had my bad and good meals at restaurants.
So far, Madeira has been the worst of places I have visited when it comes to good dining. Doesn’t matter which price range, the food bad treated under all critique… Quite few places makes it
This review was made in low season in November.
+ the toilets are nice — a thing judged in the overall experience of the restaurant.
+ The food arrive quite quickly.
+ Staff are friendly and fluent in English.
We ordered paella (you have to be at least 2 persons) with seafood as its a fish restaurant, but without clams and squid.
In my world the rice in paella has to be «al dente» firm but soft. Paella should be with saffron and quite spicy and strong.
The paella we got has nothing to do with that. The rice is overcooked. The paella is clearly coloured with turmeric but with no taste of saffron. It’s not an requirement, but then the paella have to taste something else. This one tastes… salt. Nothing else. Not spicy, no umami. Just salt. Extraordinary boring and such a disappointment.
Decided to try the «homemade» (as said on most places, but have no reason not to believe that) cakes which comes in large portions as everything else here (couldn’t finish the paella and we usually eat quite a lot as we do work out a lot).
Many desserts seems to consist of fruit mousse and so did these. Nothing bad, nothing special to say.
You get the feeling of that the chef is cooking by routine, not by commitment and passion for his/​her profession. Yet another tourist diner.
The staff seems to waiter frequently in the beginning and then somehow dissappear when you don’t seem to be ordering anything else.