Arrocería Restaurante La Casa de Valencia — Restaurant in Madrid

Excellent traditional Valencian-style food at a fair price, with various complimentary add-ons.

While waiting for the entrees, we were given complimentary plates of spring rolls and olives. Spanish places always seem to have a basket of complimentary bread rolls on the table too, which in this case were nice crusty French-style ones. The entrees were: (i) baby squid cooked in their own ink - which were very very tasty (down to the ink, apparently). (ii) Iberian dark ham, which we draped over small bits of toast dressed with a tomato based topping (iii) grilled artichokes, were were fine but less tasty until improved by sprinkling drops of olive oil and vinegar over them.

In Valencia, paella is the big thing, and was our main course. The three of us shared a large 'mixed' chicken, rabbit and vegetables paella (the 'paella' bit mostly refers to the rice it is all embedded in and fried with). It was first presented for our approval in the large round metal pan in which it had just been cooked, then served it onto our plates. It went very well with an excellent Spanish dry white wine.

While waiting for dessert, they then put on the table a large complimentary dish with dates, juicy raisins, prunes and crystallised pear, surrounding a piece of chemical-looking glassware containing a dessert wine - a tokay I think. The Spanish tradition is to lift it up and let it drop directly from a small spout into your open mouth, without actually touching the spout - but that was very difficult so they kindly bought some very small shot-type glasses.

Profiteroles were off, so I had an apple crepes for dessert. They also offered Valencia orange - literally just horizontally-cut slices of an orange from Valencia - sweet and juicy, but you can tell they are not...

We came all the way out here (a bit out of the way from the usual touristy area) because I have an obsession with paella and i just say I was disappointed with the food. Over priced for the quantity and quality. We ordered a seafood paella for 2 people and shared it between 3. You will be charged for bread as you are seated along with some olives and appetizer (3 small pieces per table of anchovies, tomatoe and toasted bread). For this you will be charged €2.75..if I remember correctly ... for each person (tell them you don't want if you don't want to be charged extra) but for this restaurant it was more worth it as it includes more stuff (other restaurants are just bread only) and not to mention you get a sweet wine and dried fruit at the end to finish off your meal (they served our one a bit late...so wait a little if they don't serve it or just tell them). So the seafood paella was a bit too soggy and the seafood was not top quality...no clams and seafood not the freshest? It had lots of little shrimp with shell so it was hard to eat or just had to eat it with the shell on . Plenty of squid which was good, mussels were ok (too less only 5) and the langoustine was the biggest disappointment - meat was mushy ...sign that it's not fresh.

Overall, decor was nice and in a good location next to park. People said you had to dress super nice and ppl were dressed better there ...but still a lot of them wore jeans...we.did not dress the best...Oh well it didn't bother us. Waiters were attentive and it was nicer than other paella I had during my trip but much more expensive. So personally I wouldn't go back...

Worst seafood I have ever had. Went in for a late lunch/early dinner. They were very proud of being open the whole day and being available for customers, yet our food was the worst yet. The octopus and potatoes straight from the can…where’s the originality? We weren’t told anything about the bread and olives not being complementary. The waiter brought the bread out without us even requesting it. The bread was cold and old…definitely not fresh; and the olives were chewy. The paella….hard and chewy rice. The waiter brought the paella holding it as if it had just came out of the heat and flames telling me to be careful and handle with care. The paella was definitely old and all they did was warm it up. Lacked taste and the container was cold within 2 minutes. Disrespectful, misleading, and deceiving establishment. I honestly don’t understand how it has come to having such good rating. So far my worst experience here in Madrid. Will surely...