• 4
• unpretentious, simple, useful

This place is quick, cheap, and just the thing you're looking for in some situations. It's essentially an all-you-can-eat Indian buffet. The dishes are mixed in their flavor and spice; nothing I had was overly bland, but nothing blew me away, either. But if you're hungry, need to load up on food, or just want to get seated and eating quickly (e.g., on a busy travel day, or when traveling with a small child), it's hard to beat. The buffet is fairly broad (salad, appetizers, mains, soups, …). Plus the price is extremely reasonable. I can imagine that if you go at the wrong time you're eating something that's been sitting atop a heater for a long time, and that can get pretty awful. I may have been fortunate to go when food was being freshly prepared and brought out. Still, this place doesn't pretend to be fancy or have airs about being vegetarian. It's solid and unpretentious. That can be a relief to a veg traveler in Europe. The location is also great (though you may need a bit of help taking the right exit out of the Baixa-Chiado metro): central, well-connected, and close to public transit, all good things for a visitor. In some other European cities, this would be a 5*. In Lisbon, which now has several veg options, I'm giving it a 4*. Still, there's nothing wrong with it at all. Could easily see returning (and very nearly did).