La Rueda Tapas Bar — Restaurant in London

Went out for Tapas at La Rueda Spanish Tapas Bar in Ealing. We were there in the early evening, so it wasn’t busy, and we could sit in the (open) window area looking out onto the street. With the hot weather, we weren’t that hungry, so we had only a few dishes.

I love the rustic Spanish feel to the place, look out of the windows and you are in bustling Ealing with cars and buses driving past, look into the restaurant, and suddenly you are transported to the back streets of a Spanish town. The decor, the bar, the tables, all make for an authentic experience of a local tapas bar.

We had the Patatas Bravas, triple fried potatoes, spicy brava and infamous Spanish aioli garlic mayonnaise sauce. Not sure if the triple frying helped, as the potatoes weren’t that crispy. However they were nice, I liked the spicy brava, and the mayonnaise was an interesting addition.

Another of our dishes was the Pollo a la Plancha, described as grilled spicy boneless chicken thighs served with Spanish alioli garlic mayonnaise sauce. Now the photograph in the online menu shows whole chicken thighs, so I was a little surprised when we were served with chicken skewers. They were served on a flat bread, well more of a wrap than a flat bread. The chicken was moist, tender and full of flavour.

Alongside the chicken we had the Pinchos Morunos, grilled spiced lamb skewers, chimichurri served with humus. These were tender chunks of lamb with peppers and onions. Like the chicken cooked well and full of flavour, as well as being served on a flat wrap. It came with a small portion of hummus, I probably would have liked more hummus, but then I probably needed to order hummus off the menu.

Out final dish was the Calamares, fried squid rings in batter. Lovely crispy batter and tender squid. Delicious.

The service was excellent, I liked how they served ice with their tap water, I also had an alcohol free beer. If I wasn’t driving I would probably have...

Delicious food - every dish we had was yummy, which is rather exceptional since my husband and I are rather picky.

The eggplant Tapas was really unusual - crispy sheets that were pleasantly sweet. I was happily surprised by how enjoyable the dish was.

The spinach and chickpeas stew was tender and lightly seasoned. There's a bit of smokiness - maybe from un-spicy paprika? A very nice dish to eat with the paella or some bread.

The gambas was delicious (4 large shrimp in an order), and the leftover garlic oil went really well with the paella.

The paella was amazing! While the vegetarian one I had really needed all 2 lemon slices that came with it (honestly could have probably used another slice), the flavoring was perfect with the lemon on top. Even better, the texture of the rice was on point - saucy yet firm, cooked but with a bit of a bite. The only downside was that some of the chickpeas felt a bit undercooked.

The worst part of the whole experience was the server we had. She wasn't willing to give recommendations (cut me off before I could finish my sentence, and offered me the brilliant insight that the pork cheek included pork), rushed our order (cut my husband off while he was finishing his order by asking if she should come back), and then reprimanded me for closing my menu too hard (it's a wood-covered menu). She also proceeded to leave the pork cheek off our order. At another point, she told us to clear our table, but then didn't take the dishes that we had to stack for her (which caused another waiter to burn himself as he had brought the paella pan over). She finished it off by not getting our dessert order or bringing our bill until we asked other servers. Apparently she's newly hired, so maybe that contributed to the issues we saw.

All the other servers we interacted with were friendly and helpful, and the food was good enough I would definitely come back. I just hope I don't get the same...

We got charged way way way more than what we were supposed to. The menu is very misleading and contradictory when it comes to prices. The food is good and the people who work there are nice. I had to call the manager to understand why we paid such a ridiculous price for 2 paellas and a creme brulé. £82.50 was the total. 35 pounds per dish, RIDICULOUS! The manager was adamant when I explained to him that there was a mistake in the bill. When I asked him to look at the prices on the menu, he couldn't really give us a logical explanation on why we had to pay such a ridiculous price. He then reduced the price a little bit, but it still wasn't close enough to what we were supposed to pay. On my way out, I encouraged the manager to look at the manu as the paellas section shows prices for a single person even though each plate of paella is always charged for two people, hence double the price. What is the point of putting prices for a single person if each plate costs twice as much all the time? I am attaching their menu for others to see and understand. Would I recommend this place for the food? YES. Would I recommend this place for convenience and honesty? Absolutely NO, unless you are willing to pay for gouging prices that are not on the menu. Attention! Each patella is twice as much the price shown on the menu as the individual portion doesn't exist at all. For instance, the De Pescado is 17.5 x 2= 35. The individual paella where a person pays 17.50 doesn't exist as the menu says in brackets (minimum 2 people).

In my opinion you either put £35 next to the dish, and then in bracket you state "portion for two people", or you put £17.50 and in bracket next to it you state "portion for 1 person" and you charge that without doubling it in the final bill.

By the way, each portion was for more than one person but definitely less than 2 people.

Good food and...