El Figón — Restaurant in Santander

Stayed at El Figon for a few days. Accommodation is pretty expensive in Santander & El Figon was the place with the best reviews for the price range we were looking at & the location was very central. ||Check-in was at the restaurant & we were led to a building behind where the restaurant was to the pension. ||Room was a standard size, clean, with sufficient storage space. However as it's just one floor, & people can come close to the window, & look in, we couldn't keep the shutters open for natural light and it was all a bit depressing. ||There were two bottles of water provided as well as a couple of small muffins on a plate alongside some sweets. Water wasn't replenished but we had read that tap water was fine to drink. Toiletries were provided in the form of shower gel & shampoo in sachets though hand-wash was in a dispenser. ||Eating times in Santander were hard to get used to as cooked food was only available for set windows of time from say 1-4 then from 8pm onwards. Anytime in between, only sandwiches or pinchos were available. We weren't able to have dinner at the hotel so they recommended we go to Sin Vueltas which we ended up visiting quite alot during our trip. ||Some positives & negatives of the pension:  ||PRE-ARRIVAL CONTACT - We emailed before the trip to enquire about toiletries, towels & a hair dryer & they responded very quickly. However, there was no response after we told them when we were arriving & instead we were sent generic messages through the booking site asking us about arrival times which was confusing. ||LOCATION was excellent. The bus, train stations as well as the sea front were easily accessible. There was a supermarket across the road & various dining options not too far away. To get to the pension though, you have to go through an arch to the back of the restaurant which was quite dingy & not very appealing. ||HOUSEKEEPING - The room was generally very clean, was cleaned daily (though not made up) & the bin emptied. The bath mat was changed a couple of times though towels were not throughout our stay. After the first evening, we had used up the shower gel & shampoo as there was only one sachet each. We went to the restaurant & used Google translate to ask for more for the next few days as the restaurant wasn't open on Sundays & we weren't sure whether there would be housekeeping. We were told no problem but when we returned to the room in the evening after a few hours, there was still no sign of the toiletries so we went across to Lupa to get some shower gel. A few minutes after we got in though, they arrived with some toiletries for us! Timing! It also wasn't very environmentally friendly to use sachets rather than containers like that used for the hand-wash. ||BATHROOM - The hair dryer was really useful including when were trying to dry our clothes! There was no fan in the toilet & the shower base was shallow so water would seep onto the toilet floor. It would feel very wet esp with the condensation as well. There was no plug for the sinkhole which was inconvenient. There also weren't sufficient hooks or hangers for the towels. ||BEDROOM - It can get quite noisy in the surroundings from other rooms in the pension, neighbours in the buildings nearby or just people stopping & talking outside the window!! Once after midnight when we were trying to sleep! The lack of natural light & the harsh lighting in the room was depressing. The room also felt damp. It was impossible to dry anything we washed, towels were damp all the time & clothes we hung in the wardrobe felt clammy. The bed was of the springy variety & kinda sagged a bit in the middle so it was hard to get a good night's sleep. There was a thin sheet as a quilt with a woolly/ fleecy blanket on top so it's not clear whether the thick blanket would have been washed per customer's stay. Instead of 2 pillows, there was a long pillow so if one person wanted to flip the pillow over, they wouldn't be able to as the other person would be on it! ||PENSION - The corridor lights are not automated or triggered by movement so when we left the room, we had to scramble down the corridor to find the light switch & turn it on before returning to our room door to lock it. The timer setting is also quite short so the lights don't stay on for long. It was good there was hand gel in the corridor though. ||Overall, other than the location, and cleanliness, it was a disappointing stay at El Figon. It was also a shame we weren't around to sample the food that was on offer at the restaurant when the kitchen was open as the reviews on the food seem largely...

Rating is for restaurant. Food:5 great value for menu del dia at 13.90 Euros. Included appitizer, main, dessert, bread, wine, water or soda for kids. Large portions, especially if you go with the meat options. (pork, chicken and steak) The Sole did not have enough meat on it for the guys. For appitizer, Lasagna was a healthy serving and very good. Russian Salad was kinda like a potato salad with canned tuna on top. Not our favorite. Tuna stew was average. Seafood paella was a huge hit, full of seafood and large portion. Dessert was very good-flan, blueberry cheese cake, and chocolate tart.

Service:4 Sweet staffs who were patient and helpful. One lady spoke English well enough to help us. Service was a bit slow at times due to high volume of customers. Atmosphere: 3 simple and clean.

We ate upstairs which was packed with...

I never seen such friendliness and great service in my entire life. I have eaten at maybe more than thousands of restaurants, I am really impressed. the waitress girl is very fast friendly and responsive, she even translated the menu for us, showed the pictures of meals. The man who was going to bring our desserts came with a google translate to confirm what we want.

The meal itself is very good, very big portions and home made, we have been here twice during our travel between oviedo and bilbao. It has huge performance/price value.

Simply dont eat anywhere else, come here. We will definetely...