The Palm Suite (Banqueting Hall) — Attraction in Oldham

I tried this buffet place in Ramadhan. I would say around the 3rd week of Ramadhan as it was close to where we currently live.

Unfortunately, it didn't live up to expectations, however as I knew a few people had been, I wasn't overly fussed or hyped about the Palm as I had mixed reviews.

I am quite a fussy eater, especially since I work hard for my money thus food is an enjoyment as well as being an experience.

The positives were:

Only 20 mins from Rochdale, would only take around 20 mins from Middleton, 30 mins from Cheetham Hill or north Manchester, but it all depends on the time of day you come, traffic etc.

Parking was easy enough, however please note there is only 1 parking bay which is for disabled parking.

I am unsure as to who parked there, but there was a Bentley in the disabled bay.

This seems to be a common occurrence in all eateries, whereas the owners or the investors usually reserve a spot for themselves, this generally makes me think of them as lazy and classless.

However, if there was a genuine disabled person who had a disability, then I take this back.

Disabled parking bays are a necessity, especially for those who have special needs children or adults who have mobility issues. My son has special needs thus my wheelchair accessible vehicle was parked in a normal bay.

There is NO excuse for not having dedicated bays in 2024 for people with disabilities/mobility issues.

The restaurant itself is quite spacious inside, the atmosphere is quite nice and as it wasn't as busy as Al Maidah, it was easy enought to speak to my wife.

The food is very hit and miss.

The pizza slices were quite nice and fresh. However, they need to have more than just Margherita and chicken and cheese with peppers..

The chips and the chicken wings were actually decent.

If the buffet was priced at between £15 to £17.99, I would come back just for the pizza, chips, chicken wings and the salad.

There was a decent amount of salad, sauces and dips including the usual Imli (tamarind), yoghurt sauces, chilli, etc.

I tend to not have the mains, however the chicken Manchurian didn't look fresh at all. My wife makes Manchurian and she makes it amazing.

The Thai chicken was quite hard and not tasty whatsoever.

Didn't try the rice, pilau, biryani etc.

Wife tried the lamb, she said it was ok, nothing to write home about. Lol.

Saying that they did have a large variety of dishes, however unsure if they had any vegi/vegan dishes.. except for the gol gappe (paani Puri) and vegi samosay.

The restaurant doesn't have a card machine so if your phones battery is dead or you are not familiar with the area or in my case, one of my phones are damaged then if you bank with RBS and it asks for biometric approval and your camera doesn't work you will be out of luck!

I'm not sure why they don't have a machine, I think the staff said it was broken, however they do take BACS.

They have a decent amount of desserts, however they don't have double cream, fresh cream or any cream variants whatsoever so if your a fan of whipped cream or cream in general, then your out of luck!

The lamb chops were able to order, however they are tiny so you have to have a few, they weren't too bad, however I did ask for another portion and even gave the chef my table number, however he decided to ignore me.

We ended up paying £48.8 as I love to have a bottle of glass coke and a strawberry mojito was ordered for my Mrs.

Any alternatives to paying £25 in Manchester? Not sure tbh. Al Maidah was also not great but better than the Palm.

Not been to Nawaab's since a long time, however it is now known as Merzee due to some issues with family as usually is the case with Asian businesses/eatieries.

Would I come back again?

Yes, only if the price was cheaper than the £19.99 I paid for me and my wife, if the staff were friendlier.

Most of the staff looked tired, over worked and lack of empathy, body language was poor, no smiles thus if Google had an option to give this 2.5 stars I would.

As is I'd d give this...

I am reviewing the new buffet restaurant The Palm in Oldham visited Sunday Oct 23rd. Came here for my son’s special birthday meal. We were excited and expecting great things considering it’s been hyped up as having 100 dishes. Complete lie. 30 dishes at most and about 8 desserts. So we walk in to dirty plates. I picked 4 plates from the clean stack and each one had curry on. I told the waiter all your plates have food on and gave them to him to wash. They had not even been washed properly and were stacked in the clean pile. Even the clean plates had greasy finger prints on. So you know they say first impressions count well guess what, I began to spoon out the chickpea chaat and noticed it was gooey and slimy and lacy so I smelled it. It was off. The smell made me wrench. It was off!! I informed staff who removed the offending item and replaced with fresh. This is a food establishment with plenty of young staff no doubt untrained 16yr olds on minimum wage so you should not be serving smelly decomposing chickpeas. It is poorly laid out and you can’t easily see what’s on offer. This is a £20 per head buffet. We were told by the seating staff and I believe a male manager that there were lamb chops that you can ask for. No mention here that they are an extra charge on top for lamb chops. Anyway so I order some and then decided to double check they were included in the £20 fee. I was told by 2 young female waitresses that they are an extra charge. I approached a male staff and told him straight what a disgusting, deceptive policy that is and so he brought over the floor manager who placated me by saying the information given by the young waiters was incorrect and that the lamb is free. However he said from next week it will cost £1.50 extra to have lamb chops! Unbelievable! My overall impression was of total disappointment. The salad bar was disappointing and unimaginative. The sweetcorn is swimming in water. It is a 2/3 star buffet disguised as a 5star.

Managers tried to be nice and were polite and attentive. But sadly the whole experience was already ruined. You must train your staff before letting them loose on customers. We will never ever visit this place again not at this price! So sadly no repeat custom from me. I have been to numerous buffets all over the U.K. and honestly you should be charging maximum £15 because although the decor is nice the food selection is slightly lacking. The lamb karahi was perfect and delicious. The naan were nice and soft. Puri was nice. Thai chicken was lovely. Chicken saag was lovely.

Desserts were chaotic. Only one cake is served at a time while another one defrosts so you have no choice in what you get. There are gulab jaman and gajrela (gajar halva) but no labels to tell you they are available. We only found out by accident. I am so upset I feel my sons special day was a let down. You are deceiving people about your 100 dishes and 30 desserts. I am going to come in soon and speak to your managers in person. I suggest you tidy up your act. Either reduce the price to reflect the food standard or improve your food selection and keep the £20 fee. Staff need training. They need to know their stuff. The desert staff didn’t even know what the flavours of the ice creams they serve were. The desserts area needs massive improvement and offer more choices of cakes please. The whole place is badly designed. You enter into this huge, huge lobby with wasted space and then go into a small overcrowded, restaurant with tight spaces and a crowded buffet area with no space to breathe. I thought there would be so much food it would take 15/20 minutes to walk across. In reality it took less than a minute. Dessert staff were rude apart from one girl pretty with a scarf who was sharp and focussed. Overall not impressed at all. Especially with dirty plates and trying to charge for lamb chops!! Learn from my...

You wanted a honest review so here goes……. Every time I’m thinking about the day it makes me soo upset to think how badly you messed up. It’s not about money or anything else but the fact that you ruined my day. I had cancelled another venue to go with you guys despite having to make my family and in laws to agree.

You made me a laughing stock infront of my family and guests that we had invited. I’m always going to have to remember my wedding day as a disaster.

You had put less tables on to start off with which didn’t even meet my guests that I had agreed on and then made it out that we had extra guests and took more money from us on the day.

You delayed a lot of things that we had discussed many times before, for example the Smoke- which can I say was an absolute joke as you made it out that it was on the walk way when we met you, However it was just a little poof on the side.

Also the fact that you messed us around with food, you never had the total amount of food ready for the guests. People hardly had a good experience whilst they were there. The service was a joke. The fact that your waiter had told a family member of mine that they can just get a McDonald’s was a joke.

You were rubbish with announcements, even though I had given you a full on itinerary which I had to chase you about on my wedding day. My wedding day was a day which I wanted to remember for all the good things but you made it a disaster. As the bride I had to chase up soo much with you!

I’m not sure what was going on your mind? But for us you ruined a day which we will forever remember. Allah swt is watching how you are scamming people. You can sit there and think you are right in this but I wish I did my research before I booked you and not just go for a ‘good looking’ Venue.

RESPONSE TO YOUR REPLY- Funny how you can reply to my review on here but not reply to my message.

11 seats per table when you promised 12 …….??? That means there wasn’t extra guests lol? You can lie to make yourself feel good but Allah knows best. You won’t get far in your business by scamming people.

Remember Allah...