Let me start by saying that it's atypical for me to take time out of my busy life to write a review about a restaurant at which I dined more than 5 days ago. However, after seeing that this establishment responded to my husband's review by denying and arguing with every point he made in our first review -- which, in my view, is the last thing ANY business should be doing (say sorry and move on!) -- I have no option but to share my point of view.
First off, we had to wait more than an 1.5 hours for our Paella to arrive. When we checked in with the manager (after an hour, at least) about the status of our Paella because we were STARVING by this point and noticed that several guests who arrived after us were already eating theirs, she begrudgingly responded "Well, they must've pre-ordered their paella ahead of time"; no apology, no sense of her feeling even a bit remorseful. We couldn't believe it because as the manager of any establishment you should, in our view, be concerned enough to at least say "I'm sorry it's taking so long!"...But maybe it's commonplace in their restaurant to make guests wait 1.5 hours for their food?
Anyways, after the paella finally arrived (which it did shortly after us speaking with the manager), we were appalled to find that the Paella was undercooked (it seemed like the manager just had the chef take the paella off the stove without ensuring it was actually ready after speaking with us) and both the rice and fish were still slightly raw. The paella was also WAY too salty. We seriously wondered if the cook/manager/someone spitefully added additional salt before serving the paella to us because they were obviously annoyed by our "complaining" that our food was taking 1.5 hours to arrive when others around us were already eating (though they arrived later than we did). We'll never know but it was honestly so salty that we wouldn't be surprised if this was intentional...
Furthermore, as we ate the paella, the waiters were nowhere to be found. We would've appreciated a water refill (our wine and water glasses were 100% empty) to counter the salt ...but again, no waiter was around to serve any beverage. It was clear they just decided to ignore our table. We had our own water bottle under the table and eventually decided to just drink from that because....what else were we going to do....the food was way too salty and the waiters were not coming by to ask if we needed anything else (which is crazy for restaurant where you pay 100 euros for lunch).
In her response to my husband's review, the manager of this establishment claimed that she "checked in" with us several times as we were eating the paella to ensure everything was good and that we said "yes". This is, in fact, true...but only because by this point we had already unsuccessfully chatted with her once before and observed as she blatantly disregarded our opinion without even enough decency, as the manager, to apologize in the slightest that waited for 1.5 hours for our food. So, why would we even bother talking to her again and sharing with her our actual opinion? We knew that at this point Google Reviews was our only last option.
Also, she went on to claim (in her response to my husband's review) that we "finished the entire paella" as to imply that we obviously did that because we liked it...No, we ate it because we had to wait for 1.5 hours after a workout on a Saturday and we were STARVED at this point.
Lastly, and most sadly, when the bill came, we were expected to pay anyways.
They did subtract the cost of one person's portion of the paella (approx. 26 euros)...but that was all. We still had to pay 76 euros or so.
What's the best part of all of this is that one of the waiters (the only decent person working there - sadly I don't know his name and he should be made the manager) told us that the reason the paella took so long is because the order ticket had fallen on the floor in the kitchen...
Anyhow, as someone who has dined at many restaurants in my life, I truly find it peculiar that this restaurant's manager won't simply admit that they messed up, comp the meal, and move on with her life? Let alone go on Google and FIGHT her customers? Good luck, Barlovento, with a manager like that, you're going to need it... read more
