Restaurante Abando — Restaurant in Bilbao

I was surprised how bad an experience we had. The restaurant has really nice recommendations on google but the service was soo bad. We came in and asked for a table and they didn’t took much of a notice of us. After finally getting showed to a place, first where we could wait then to a table, we waited long for someone to take our order. When we had to pay, we waited 30 minutes for the bill even though we had asked for it three times. Not once did they come and asked how the food was. The food was ok. We got a hake which was good, but the side dishes didn’t fit the meal. We also got a steak which were ordered to be cooked medium, however it came out entirely rare. We asked for it to be cooked a little more, but when it came back it looked like they had only cooked it on one side, because one side was well done and the other still rare. They didn’t come to check if it was alright (again) and when we told them about the problem, they just suggested to cook the raw side more (but that would just have made the steak well done throughout). Unfortunately the restaurant also gets pretty noisy which makes if difficult to have a conversation. All in all a...

The food was wonderful. I found a table to enjoy my pintxos and wine at a small table near a window which had a bottle of cleaner and a rag on top of it. I moved it to the floor as no one was cleaning in the area and it was the closest to a window. ~30 minutes later a worker comes over and just sets it back on the table in front of me and goes back to doing something at another table. I try to ask her “why?” in English, feeling upset and unseen by her doing this… she said it had to stay seemingly just trying to make a point (of what, I’m not sure). She answers in a way that feels hostile and defensive, and evidently the bottle HAD to stay on the counter as I eat while nothing was being cleaned. I could cry. I could scream. As a solo traveler, and yes American, it’s moments like these that make me feel not only unliked but unwelcome for nothing more than I’m not part of this culture. Ruined my whole experience at an otherwise...

Despite others raving reviews we found our experience here disappointing.

We were greeted by the very friendly male waiter who sat us down and recommended some dishes to us. We ordered the black pudding, scrambled eggs and pil-pil cod to share.

The food was abysmal. The black pudding had no taste whatsoever, no smokiness. Nothing. scrambled eggs which were okay sunk us about €11. but by far the worst was the cod pil pil which we were really looking forward to. It had a superb presentation being hand sliced by the table but it was tough as old boots (overcooked? Or not stored properly) it also had this yellow sauce which we assumed would be full of flavour garlic chilli or anything really it was just sticky yellow tasteless gloop.

To make matters worse I was fully expecting to explain why we didn't eat our meal but the waitress didn't even ask if we enjoyed it. So all in all. Expensive, overrated....