Txulotxo - Pasaia

Service: Dine in Meal type: Dinner Price per person: €20–30 Food: 5 Service: 5 Atmosphere: 5

Always excellent attention and service Food: 5 Service: 5 Atmosphere: 5

Lovely views, staff and menu! I had fish soup and then clams. Was lovely. Highly recommend to check out this restaurant if in the area!

It is lucky for the restaurant that I am writing the review, rather than the other lunch team, all of whom would have graded the place lower. Despite everything, I found my meal to be OK, tasty but somewhat lacking in presentation on the plate. But what was everything? We arrived, booked for the start of the lunch session, but no one wanted to seat us or help us in any way. Finally we were told that being a weekend, it had to be a full set menu, which we duly ordered, only to become angry when we saw everyone around us not having to order from the set menu. Maybe we need to improve our Spanish or maybe we were just not treated too well. Or both. By the way, Pasajes de San Juan itself is a very picturesque fishing village with a charming town square towards one end and an exceptionally nice women's clothing store at the other end. The church was also pretty. It is a really nice place. I am not sure if it actually falls under the San Sebastian area as it is perhaps 20 25 minutes away by car.

After a recommendation from our accommodation hosts we paid a visit to Txulotxo. We arrived to find just one other table occupied, which is always, to me a sign of unpopularity. When we eventually get some attention from the waitress we ordered, and fairly promptly our entree of octopus arrived. That was pretty good and the wine was also good. Having ordered a bottle of wine, we were maybe half way into our first glass by the time we finished our entree. Within maybe 2 minutes of completing our entrees the waitress brought our mains. The crayfish was tiny and almost not worth serving. Half a shared entree of octopus each contained more meat than the total amount of the main. The lobster was so small and finicky that it simply wasn’t worth the effort of cracking the shells. The waitress almost never came near us and made little or no effort to communicate. I’m not sure what we did wrong, but the attitude was one of disinterest. Do yourself a favour and give this place a big miss. They don’t deserve your hard earned money.