To me, a real Portuguese bar is long and thin in shape, and lit up with florescent tubes. There is a glass cabinet holding sweet and salty pasteis / salgados and a great whoppping shiny coffee machine. The waiter / owner is always dignified, old, male and intense. They are informal and chat for hours. They have a pot belly. There is a lack of Health and Safety. The clinetel is made up of the elderly folk who sit and eat for hours. Tableclothes are paper and the menu is always the same. Tasty, heavy, REAL food... bacalhau (cod) cooked in everyway possible, other fish, steak, beef, caracois (snails). Arroz doce (sweet rice for pudding) and the little pastries I was talking about. Coffee is cheap, small, and strong and is gulped down in 30 seconds. These are most authentic in the countryside where white concrete buildings house such bars in blistering hot towns of sand and olive trees.
They do not believe in Fruit and Veg in these places much... perhaps a mixed salad if you are lucky. For fruit you are better going to a fruit stall, managed by similar styled staff. Like this.
On the other end of the scale, there are some pastelarias that are swish, and have a hundred types of pastry. My favourte is parra com creme, that is sheets of sweet flaky pastry in a sandwhich shape filled with custardy cream. Look at this place below. This is where I had breakfast on my first day.
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