I was so looking forward to visiting this market a...

I was so looking forward to visiting this market as it s in almost every must-do list for Lisbon and was thoroughly underwhelmed. The atmosphere and buzz were, admittedly, wonderful and it is housed in a beautiful space. But the quality of the food fell short of expectations. I had crisp pork belly and clams on potatoes and other than salt and a sprinkling of cilantro, there was no seasoning, no flavouring, so it was just meh and oily. My husband had a vegetable pad thai that was mostly sprouts with an unfamiliar soy sauce-based sauce rather than the traditional tamarind-based sauce. My kids had satay chicken skewers that had a peanut sauce that tasted overpoweringly of turmeric, which muddied the flavour of the dish. They also had a lemon eclair for dessert that had a filling that tasted like a block of sour butter. Also, the wait for the food was excruciatingly long. It took 25-30 minutes to get an order for a California roll (with tuna instead of crab??!!!) at a stand with no line-up. We live in Vancouver, where world cuisine is plentiful, extremely well-executed and relatively cheap so maybe we ve been spoiled. As a side note, the attached fresh fruit and vegetable market was pretty dismal. Maybe we went on the wrong day (Wednesday morning), but there was not a lot of selection and was thinly populated by vendors, but I found the fresh seafood stalls to be very interesting.