Carom
at Meza
Date of Visit: 16th
October 2013
Ambience
The setting/décor has quite a
middle-eastern feel with thin curtain like drapes and red/dark lighting. The sides of the restaurant were filled with
cosy looking booths, whilst the centre tables were paired with low seats.
The red surroundings made it feel
like a love theme yet the majority of the tables were catering for small to
medium sized groups.
Food
My vegetarian friends commented
on the broad veggie dishes that were on offer and they tried a number of dishes
which apparently were quite good.
Drinks wise, we tried a couple of
Indian inspired cocktails – some sort of lychee and rose water based drink with
saffron and a twist (Lychee Rose Collins) but we couldn’t work out what the
twist was since it was compared to the normal lychee and rose water
concoction. I went for the Carom lassi
which was yoghurt mixed with mango, rose, cardamom spiked with Russian Standard
vodka and apricot brandy. It sound
exotic but it was a little disappointing as it lacked a mango taste and was
fairly bland.
For starter, I tried a sizzler
kebab trio which consisted of grilled salmon, chicken thigh tikka and a small
lamb chop which was served on a sizzler pan, accompanied with a mint dip. I thought the salmon was slightly over-cooked
but the chicken and lamp chops were quite nice but the flavours were edging on
the bland side given Indian marinades are normally quite strong/spiced.
For mains, I had a king prawn
Kerala curry, baked basmati rice, garlic naan bread and I also tried some of
the braised lamb curry. The king prawn
curry was meant to be mango based and whilst the colour matched the
description, I didn’t think the taste did.
It was quite creamy but with no spice at all. Also, it was literally a few prawns (hardly
tiger sized) and the sauce – not even a few sliced onions! The lamb curry was
much better… the meat was tender and the sauce was a little spicy so much
better for dipping the naan bread. The
sides were quite standard for any Indian restaurant.
Desserts were good – I opted for
the chocolate fondant with chilli and white chocolate hearts and pistachio ice
cream whilst my friend had the sticky toffee pudding with cinnamon ice
cream. The chocolate fondant was a
surprise. It was served warm and
chocolate inside literally poured out like a lava after the “wall’ was
broken. It looked amazing and tasted
rather good too.. not overly sweet but the surprise were the chilli and white
chocolate hearts. The chilli taste was
pungent but I liked that little extra kick because chocolate and chilli works
quite well in my opinion. However, we
did not all come to the same conclusion as my friend preferred the dessert
without the chilli kick.
As for the sticky toffee pudding,
it was as sweet as ever but the cinnamon ice cream was a nice complement.
Service
The service – I couldn’t wait to
get to this section! The service from
the servers were pleasant and they listened well when taking our orders (e.g.
they managed to communicate our requests to the kitchen). However, there were two things that let us
down on this evening. The first being
that we asked if we could sit in a booth before we were seated but upon
checking, we were told it was not possible as they were fully booked which was
fine until we realised at the end that some of the booths remained unoccupied
all night (we were sat there for 2.5 hours).
The second which was the biggest
problem was the attitude of what we presume was the manager. We encountered an issue whereby my friends
had booked the table via toptable (2 courses for x, 3 courses for x) and upon being
seated, this was made very clear to the staff there. However, nobody explained to us when we
placed the order which menu we should have ordered from to get the deal. Anyway, the manager came to speak to us before
we got the bill as we reminded them we booked via toptable. He was rude, unapologetic and very
patronising! Not only did he not apologize once for the misunderstanding but he
belittled us by saying that nobody needed to tell us which menu to order from
as it was obvious but it clearly wasn’t. Nowhere on the menu did it say “set
menu” (instead they used fancy names like World Traveller). Admittedly we should have probably asked the
question (but 2 out of 4 of us didn’t even know we had a “deal”) but equally
they should have handled it better.
Knowing we had booked via toptable, they should have either only given
us the set menu and explained if we wanted anything from the a la carte, they
could bring us that menu or provide both menus and explain that the small sheet
of paper was what was included and anything on the other pages would be
additional costs.
Anyway, it wasn’t like we were
trying to get away with not paying so after an unacceptable service level from
management we asked for the bill and left without paying the service charge
which ironically they didn’t bother adding to the bill. Getting it wrong was partly our fault but the
rudeness of the “manager” and his tone of voice was offensive and frankly he
needs to go on a course to deal with customers in a professional manner.
Summary
I shall not be returning to this
place on the customer service received alone as we did not feel welcome and we
were treated as if we were trying to get away with not paying for what we
consumed. In addition, I didn’t think
the food was that great – I’ve had plenty of better Indian meals in my lifetime to
not care about returning here and it will not be one of my recommendations
either.
Anyway, I will end this by saying
that guy needs to be FIRED or sent on a few courses!
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