Restaurante en Marbella EL BALCÓN DE LA VIRGEN — Restaurant in Marbella

Really disappointed...

Was with a group at El Balcón de la Virgen. Our first idea was to get the tapas lunch promo, which included 5 tapas and a small (really small) beer for about 7 euro's. The waiter then came with a menu card showing a picture of the tapas. 2 of the 5 tapas was french fries with a little lump of meat, an the other 3 looked like it was taken from a frozen bag. One of the people in your group chose to go with the pizza promo which was a margarita pizza and the same small beer, while the rest of the group chose the lunch menu. The pizza looked like a smaller version of the frozen pizza's you can buy in a supermarket for less then 1 euro. The lunch menu that I had, included a tomato soup as Appetizer, an spear with pork pieces and french fries for main course, and a cop of coffee for 10 euro. The soup tasted like a can of tomato mixed with oregano and olie. the pork in the main course was fine (a little dry, but ok) but the french fries where the worst french fries I had tried. they were soft and covered in oil and no seasoning. The coffee was fine but a very...

We came to this restaurant aware of some of the negative reviews, but were hungry and tired of walking around. The three stars are for the great, personable service from one of the staff members. The atmosphere was also lovely, though sometimes hampered by sellers and beggars weaving in occasionally to try and sell things to customers. Then again, this is not the fault of the restaurant. One thing that really let this place down was the food, the paella my friends got was adequate but the starters of garlic bread and the main margheritas were quite literally something you could buy in the local supermarket and throw in the oven. I understand that a restaurant needs to make a profit, but it was shocking to see it so obviously cheap and store bought. Still, it filled us up and wasn't inedible, but quite dissapointing altogether. The waiter made up for all of it and I would've loved to give a 5 star rating for him alone, this place would be great if the food was improved on. So if you're simply looking for a nice sit down and atmosphere and don't care so much about the food, this...

Not to be repeated! Service started pleasant but extremely slow, food was average but took ages to come Lots of staff running round like headless chickens and an older man who we took to be the owner complaining in a loud voice that people who had chosen to take the fixed menu had been ordering capuccinos which wasn't allowed as they were only entitled to ordinary coffee! We were so sick of it we decided not to bother with deserts and asked for coffee and the bill at the same time. We were not on the fixed menu and one of our party asked for a capuccino, just for the sake of it! Over the next 30 minutes we asked 3 times, then asked them to forget the coffee and just bring the bill. We were told the coffee was on its way and had taken so long as they had been busy with a table of 20. After another 10 minutes we got angry and told them to bring the bill so we could escape. At this stage the waiter was obnoxious and the owner had disappeared.

There are far more pleasant places to...