A sandes tinha maionese a mais, e eu quase não senti o sabor do frango.

Yes. In European Portuguese, sandes is normally treated as a feminine noun, so you say a sandes.

Examples:

• a sandes
• uma sandes
• a minha sandes

This may feel arbitrary to an English speaker, because English nouns do not have grammatical gender. You simply need to learn the noun together with its article.

Yes. Sandes is a common European Portuguese word for sandwich.

In Portugal, sandes is very natural in everyday speech. You may also hear more specific types of sandwiches, depending on the filling or style.

A learner should especially note that Brazilian Portuguese often prefers sanduíche, while sandes is strongly associated with Portugal.

Tinha is the imperfect form of ter, which usually means to have.

Here, A sandes tinha maionese a mais literally means The sandwich had too much mayonnaise. In English, we often say food has ingredients, and Portuguese does the same.

So:

• A sandes tinha maionese = The sandwich had mayonnaise
• O bolo tinha chocolate = The cake had chocolate

Using ser or estar would change the meaning:

• era = was
• estava = was in a temporary state

But here the idea is not that the sandwich was mayonnaise, nor that it was in a mayonnaise state. It simply contained too much mayonnaise.

A mais means too much, more than necessary, or excessively.

So:

• maionese a mais = too much mayonnaise

This is a very useful expression in Portuguese.

Examples:

• Sal a mais = too much salt
• Açúcar a mais = too much sugar
• Pimenta a mais = too much pepper

It often comes after the noun:

• maionese a mais
• sal a mais

That word order may feel unusual to an English speaker, because English usually puts too much before the noun.

Yes. Demasiada maionese is also correct and means too much mayonnaise.

There is a slight difference in feel:

• demasiada maionese directly states too much mayonnaise
• maionese a mais sounds a bit like mayonnaise in excess or more mayonnaise than was needed

Both are natural. In this sentence, maionese a mais sounds very idiomatic and conversational.

Quase não senti means I hardly felt/noticed or, in this context, I could barely taste.

Breakdown:

• quase = almost / nearly
• não senti = I didn’t feel / I didn’t notice / I didn’t taste

Together, quase não senti literally means something like I almost didn’t feel. In natural English here, that becomes:

• I could barely taste
• I hardly noticed
• I almost couldn’t taste

The não is essential. Compare:

• quase senti o sabor do frango = I almost tasted the chicken flavor
• quase não senti o sabor do frango = I barely tasted the chicken flavor

So the não completely changes the meaning.

Yes, sentir often means to feel, but it can also mean to perceive with the senses, including taste.

In food contexts, Portuguese often uses sentir for to notice or to taste/perceive a flavor.

So:

• senti o sabor do frango = I tasted / noticed the flavor of the chicken

This is very natural in Portuguese. It emphasizes sensory perception rather than the physical act of tasting.

O sabor do frango means the flavor of the chicken.

Using o sabor do frango makes the meaning more precise: the speaker is saying the mayonnaise was so strong that the chicken flavor was hard to notice.

If you said just:

• quase não senti o frango

that could still be understood, but o sabor do frango is clearer and more explicit, especially in a sentence about competing flavors.

Do is a contraction of:

• de + o = do

So:

• o sabor do frango = the flavor of the chicken
• literally: the flavor of the chicken

This kind of contraction is extremely common in Portuguese:

• de + a = da
• de + os = dos
• de + as = das

Examples:

• a cor da casa = the color of the house
• o nome do rapaz = the boy’s name
• o fim dos jogos = the end of the games

Yes. Portuguese often omits subject pronouns when the verb form already shows who the subject is.

So both are possible:

• eu quase não senti o sabor do frango
• quase não senti o sabor do frango

Both mean the same thing.

Including eu can:

• add emphasis
• create contrast
• make the sentence slightly more explicit

For example, if someone else liked it but you did not, eu might help stress I:

• Ele gostou, mas eu quase não senti o sabor do frango.

This is a very common and important pattern in Portuguese.

• tinha = imperfect
• senti = preterite

Here is the difference:

A sandes tinha maionese a mais

• describes a background situation or characteristic
• the sandwich had too much mayonnaise

eu quase não senti o sabor do frango

• describes a completed event or reaction
• I barely tasted the chicken flavor

So the sentence combines:

• a state/background: tinha
• a finished action/experience: senti

This is very natural in both Portuguese and English:

• The sandwich had too much mayonnaise, and I barely tasted the chicken.

Yes, mainly the word sandes.

That is one of the clearest signs that this is European Portuguese. A Brazilian learner might expect sanduíche instead.

The rest of the sentence is broadly standard Portuguese and would be understandable across varieties, but sandes is especially characteristic of Portugal.

Yes. A natural English translation would be something like:

• The sandwich had too much mayonnaise, and I could barely taste the chicken.
• There was too much mayonnaise in the sandwich, and I hardly tasted the chicken.

A very literal version would be:

• The sandwich had mayonnaise too much/in excess, and I almost didn’t feel the flavor of the chicken.

But that literal version is not natural English. The Portuguese sentence itself is perfectly natural.