TapaSpaña — Restaurant in Madrid

I have eaten at many Spanish restaurants in the USA and Spain. I have never had such a displeasure as I have at this "business" called Tapaspana. For one, the greeter sat us in the basement at a small table against a pillar next to the kitchen that should not have had any table there-not enough space for foot traffic of servers. As evidence, not only did I have to get up from my seat to let someone push a baby carriage past me and do the server's jobs (at least 3 of them around) by pushing the chair way into the table, leaning into it, so the poor customer-who was grateful to me-could leave. After the 3rd plate whizzing right over and past my head, I moved catty-corner with my partner so as not to have to endure an eventual head injury from the over rushed and incredibly stressed wait staff. That was the first 10 minutes-incorporating safety measures-as we were ignored completely and nobody even tried to get a drink order. They'd left one English menu only so I asked my partner to order for us both. She's a native Spaniard from Madrid so she knows her tapas. We wondered aloud if we would be charged higher for less food as we might be perceived as gullible Americanos. They didn't eventually disappoint on that front. Finally a server showed up, she attempted to order beer and food, and he told us rather briskly that he was only there to get our drink order. We ordered 2 beers, which were the only shining moments of our visit. Eventually another server came to take our food order, she ordered grilled octopus with paprika and an order of grilled shrimp that were priced high, so assumed generous. We sipped our beers while we waited, not a long wait until a server arrived and placed the smallest plate of octopus I've ever seen with a small potato cut in half. There wasn't even much paprika, it was practically a white dish. The octopus was just ok: mushy, small, overcooked and probably frozen. Ok, shrimp coming, maybe they could redeem themselves? Alas, no: a plate of 5 shrimp arrived that were small, not much left after peeling. And they were lukewarm, like the octopus.

My partner was fuming and called the meal "a total rip off". I couldn't agree more. We finished our beers as we planned our walk to find another restaurant to have dinner, as this was not even equal to an appetizer after 2 dishes, and the waiter came back with the audacity to ask if we wanted to order more food after not checking on us at all to know whether we even liked the food. She answered: "No, la cuenta." (The check). He left and no check arrived for another 10 minutes and she had to keep swiveling around at the massive current of servers running back and forth past us and ask two more times to receive the check. The total was 38 euros for 2 average sized beers, and two tiny sad plates of food that would not even remotely begin to feed one person combined together.

Did I mention the bread? The customary bread that any Spanish restaurant anywhere in the world brings out right after you sit down? No, I did not as they neither brought nor offered any. I found out after reading reviews that bread is ala carte and apparently small and stale. I wasn't surprised to learn about the quality. We left. We went a few addresses up the hill to a small cafeteria and ordered 2 bocadillos de calamares sandwiches (fried squid) and 2 big coffees: they were big, tasty sandwiches at the new place, nice people and we had everything in front of us in under 10 minutes for 13.60 euros for more food and drink than the restaurant of this review served us for nearly 3 times as much. So that, just for reference, tells you what an absolute scam this is. Save your time, patience and money and avoid this...

Orders: Seafood and Chicken Paella (good for 3) Fried Baby squid Grilled sea bass Callos Bread

For 5 people, we didn’t expect that we ordered one too many. The paella serving for 3 seemed to be good for 5 people! It was tasty and packed with shrimp and chicken. We also requested for it to be ‘sin sal’ or no salt.

The grilled sea bass was perfectly seasoned while the baby squid batter is light and crunchy.

While our server is nice, communication is a bit difficult since he doesn’t speak english.

Also, the place is huge. We have elders with us so preference is a regular table, not high chair or bar. We just didn’t expect it will be underground so stairs is a bit of a challenge for them. But otherwise, the ambiance of the place is lively and it was very near our hotel too.

In terms of price, it was almost double of the paella we paid for in Barcelona (about 20euro per person). As for the other viands, it was reasonably priced.

Total bill is 160 euro for 5 people.

Learnings - had we known that the paella serving was that huge, we could have ordered just for 2, and could have foregone the bread...

Food is ok, but the staff deceptively make you change your order to spend more. Me and my friend ordered the swordfish for €21.xx each, but the waiter insisted on changing the fish with another one not on the menu, insisting we would have liked it more. Eventually we accept to change the order, but after a few minutes we realise we didn’t get confirmation about the price and when I ask I discover it’s an arbitrary €28 (even higher than other fish dishes on the menu). I complain and ask to get again the swordfish instead, but my request gets denied because they already started the preparations, still I get reassured that the fish was very fresh and exquisite: in the end it was good, but not enough given the price

What annoyed me more is that the waiter instead of apologising about the “misunderstanding” or at least pretending to be sorry about it, he treated us like cheapskates and arrogantly argued we shouldn’t complain about “just 5 euros more” (it wasn’t 5 btw). I could have been more aware, but counting our money like that is...