La Plancha Spanish restaurant — Restaurant in Leiden

While my pre-Corona story was positive about this place. I cannot be positive about this place in the corona time. While you think you have to do your best, so you can keep customers, La Plancha did anything but that. I made a reservation for pickup 5 days prior, so they could inform me if it was manageable. They confirmed my order.

On the day we went to pick up our order, it was disappointment after disappointment. First of all I asked them what time between 17:00 and 18:00 I could pick up our food. They mailed me 17:30. I arrived at 17:30. When we walked inside, we heard that we should wait 30 more minutes. From the look of things, they did not even start cooking yet. This was already a red flag, I should have declined it then and there and just bought food somewhere else. But knowing how restaurants struggle, I did not want to do that. So we waited. When we came back, the food was done. That surprised me. We ordered a lot of food (80 euros for two persons). And it only took them 30 min. That sounded fishy. Second disappointment: They told us they could not make one of our ice cream dishes. If you knew that already, why didn't you tell us in the mail? Why give us false hope that we will get our whole order?

After we paid, we went back to our hotel (3 min walk). We already expected mediocre food because of it being takeaway and not eaten directly in the restaurant. But my oh my, the food was awful. I have tasted tastier microwave food than this. The patatas bravas, of course, was a little soggy (Which I did not mind, because it was take away). But the sauce on top of it was just hideous, and they threw it all over ONE place. So a couple of those potatoes were drowning in sauce while the rest stayed dry as the Sahara. The fish dishes. It just tasted like microwaved food. It had zero taste, it felt rubbery, and it was just a disappointment. The croquettes. This one they could not have f*cked up. It is just deep-fried food. Simple handling. Tiramisu dessert. I could've let a random blind person make a tiramisu and still be better looking than the tiramisu I received here. It was awful. The mere fact you pay 6.50 for one spoonful of coffee powder on a stick is just the biggest scam yet.

In short, I think they cut corners because of the whole pandemic. I did not respect their decisions, but I do understand it. They lost all my respect in the progress. I will never eat here again. You can still try this place if you like Spanish food, but do not expect it to be worth your money whatsoever. (80 euros down the drain, I ate a subway sandwich...

Mostly a place to eat meats I'm sure, as a vegetarian I wasn't a happy camper. Salads lacked imagination like they were tossed together as an obligation rather than an actual appetizer; enjoy chewing up quarter slices of bell pepper. None of the vegetables in the meals are fresh (no effort was made to prepare the obviously frozen sliced vegetables in a pleasing manner) and merely heated up before they're served. I had to content with a scoop of unassuming legumes, a can of chick peas and a bland tomato sauce which barely made the effort of eating it worthwhile. 14 euros.

Again, I can't be sure about the fish meats, they looked alright and the patatas bravas were lovely enough to keep my discontent subdued, somewhat. Stick to those things if you were like me, tagging along with your grandparents to eat out on their...

Bad experience today with this restaurant, we wait for 1 hour and a half for the food, when it finally arrived one dish was missed and other was not cooked at all!. For the one dish missed we wait another half hour (yes total 2 hours wait for a dish !). Worst thing is they never advise us what was happening, and the manager did not show at all to offer apologizes, he sent his employees to apology. I understand some times things can happen, but not showing you care for your customers is not good, I think is...