Arrabal Madrid — Restaurant in Madrid

So, for some reasons, google got many reviews and all very positive. Since I was finding ways to navigate around the city, and so far the reviews of other restaurants in google and yelp have been consistent, I forgot to get the yelp review.

So, is this restaurant as bad as 1 star or so as some rated on yelp? Or as good as 4.5 in google? I say, somewhere in the middle, and definitely not worth visiting ever.

First, the place is dirty. I was walked to the downstairs restaurant area, and the chair was full of breadcrumbs. Then I also noticed the table has two ants with wings. I think they will mate soon and create an ant colony here.

The menu was in Spanish and there was this QR code. But the internet reception was very bad. The waiter, after a long while, finally gave us the password to their wifi. The overall service of the waiter has been very indifferent through out the rest if the course, but we were the only table for him to serve. And surprisingly, given this restaurant is located in a plaza of major tourist spot of the capital, the waiter does not speak English. That made communication difficult. And the bill actually included tips to the service, 6 euro by default.

What saved the meal was the food. It was not a super star, but not bad. The paella was very pricey at 40euros, a bit salty but at least has very strong seafood flavor in every bite. The tomato was tasty and fresh, but not really special. The beef has good spice flavor but a bit overcooked. The house wine was actually not bad.

Overall, the food is acceptable, service was terrible, not a very clean place, and overpriced. It ended up a 90 euro meal with paella and two appetizers. But if I would price it, it should not include the 6 euros for table service, paella should be around 35 euros for it seafood freshness, and the appetizer should be around 10 euros. Give or take, this should worth only 60 euros instead of 90, especially the service...

Service was awful: Rude/un-attentive and the strangest behavior we have ever seen from a waiter. Food : was mediocre. Ambience: okay. After sitting at our table we were waiting for a while for a menu but the two waiters seemed to be fighting or joking ( couldn’t tell as we don’t speak spanish) right in front of our tables and sure enough no menu. I grabbed a menu from the table beside us and after some time we were able to place an order. We ordered Paella for two. Once ready the waiter put the big pan on our table and immediately left. We didn’t have any spoon to scoop it out. Tried to find him, but he was nowhere to be found. We set our plates aside and started eating off the big pan (we were hungry!). After a while the waiter came and in a matter of seconds (as we are eating) took our olive bowl and our sauce bowl, put them on top of each other and took them away, along with our plates!! As we look in disbelief, he put back the olive/sauce dishes on our table (which are at this point are gross and smashed together on top). My husband told him that we were working on that, and he says : new. He came back with some olives but I mean, the behavior is beyond what I...

I made reservations to visit this venue on June 14, 2022. As soon as we arrived from Porto we went straight to the restaurant without having lunch. In other words, we were starving! As soon as we got there the servers were very diligent and attentive. Nothing changed throughout our dinner. However, you need to understand that this is a TOURIST TRAP and that you need to avoid it by all means. It is WAY overpriced, the quality of the food is simply substandard, and the amount they serve is it ridiculously small. We try the Chicken Paella and it included two chicken wings split in half. The rice was not even enough for two people, even though they charged a minimum of $42€ for two. Our friends other a Seafood Paella and it had only shrimp when the description offered by the server supposedly included clams and other seafood. We fell for this tourist trap for the reviews (4.5 on Google) but it is not even worth of 1 start. Just simply go by the Plaza Mayor, take pictures and go have dinner as far from the center of Madrid as you can. If you read this review and still go for it the ,...