YERBABUENA — Restaurant in Madrid

A poky little restaurant with an entire vegetarian menu. More expensive than the local Tapas restaurants but you can get a special of 3 courses & a glass of wine for €20.

The experience on arrival was terrible. We waited 15 minutes at the door someone to acknowledge our presence. The restaurant was busy but not so busy at that the waitress had it seen us standing there.

We eventually interrupted her with our best broken Spanish to be told they were very busy although there had been an empty table for 4 at the enterance from the moment we arrived.

We had our heart set on eating here so we patiently waited while other people piled in and left and they eventually split up the the table of 4 for ourselves and another couple and we waited for the terrible service to continue.

The wait staff were more interested in talking to their friends and colleagues that wandered in and out of the restaurant. Drinks took 15 minutes to be served and were never replenished. We had to try and interrupt several times to get water despite ordering everything at once. We had rightly feared that once our orders were placed we would be completely ignored for the remainder of the meal.

The bread may as well come out of a plastic aeroplane packet but otherwise the food was good. The Falafel starter was delicious and other than the stale nuts in my sautéed spinach the entree was also very good. The vegetarian paella was ok but you definitely needed to squeeze the fresh lemon to open the flavour but I would highly recommend eating the mousaka if you don't have any adversity to cheese.

The restaurant appears to have wifi but getting the code might be a challenge not worth entertaining. You will struggle enough just to order food and get the table cleared before your next course arrives. Oh and remember to hold on to your cutlery. They DO NOT like to give you new cutlery for each course. (Take special note if your order soup for starters and want to use your spoon for dessert)

If you are a vegetarian or vegan and are desperate for a good veggie feed in Madrid then it could be worth waiting, booking and enduring the pain. But overall the restaurant was over priced, over difficult, under staffed, poorly serviced and terribly run.

There's better options in Madrid. Not purely vegetarian but hunt out a vegetarian Tapas bar an you will be...

Vegetarian paella - really great, kinda mushy-texture rice dish. First time having paella. Don’t know how authentic this was (since it didn’t have any meat) but it tasted kinda like Vagharelo Bhaat (Indian style fried rice).

Nachos - the corn chips were very crispy (edge ones browned) and the mix of various vegetables, beans, and cheese was good, albeit oversalted. Definitely too much for one person to finish. There were too many chips and not enough filling on top.

Quesadilla - the sauce/cheese mix they used inside was a bit odd for my palat, maybe it was blue cheese (I do not enjoy that). And, the arugula clashed with the rest of the dish. Can’t recommend this one.

Yerbabuena scrambled egg - the dish was assembled really well. The eggs were fried, not scrambled with a beautiful golden yolk. The potatoes were tender. Taste-wise it was alright: the individual components tasted like themselves rather than synergizing into one dish/one flavor.

Seitan fillet - chewy, firm, and delicious. This was my favorite dish of the ones I tried.

This restaurant serves decent vegetarian food in healing quantities. You get your money’s worth here and won’t go...

When we sat the waitress brought us bread buns, and it was not made clear that you have to pay extra for them. After we ordered. She brought me a can of beer although I did not order anythibg to drink, so after seeing some confusion in our faces she took it back.

Looks like no one speaks english. Menus ar badly translated to english that are to hard to understand what the dish is.

Table water had chlorine taste in it.

Food tasted decent, but could be better prepared. Also before food brought us small appetisers. And at the end tea.

Some dishes contain eggs so not really vegetarian, but some dishes are labeled as for vegans, so those are at least egg free.

I would not recommend to go there unless you could not find any other working...