Tarbouche Mezza Bar — Restaurant in Brisbane City

Where do I start? Zero service. This is meant to be a traditional Arabic restaurant with Arabic music, service and a traditional Arabic atmosphere. But tonight was the worst I have ever experienced in my life when it comes to service or tradition. I have been here before and had a great traditional experience with the same staff and management. But this evening started with nothing but delays in service of drinks and table service. They did not seem understaffed or overly busy, whereas at our previous visit they were busy and our service on that occasion was exceptional. The last time I visited was at least 8 months ago. Coming back tonight with business associates who had also experienced great service at past visits. On a quiet night our first drinks took nearly 30mins to be delivered and the Arak was served in warm glasses, with warm water and barely enough ice. Our Mazza (Tapas) came out and the bread, although it is made fresh on site, was delivered nearly 20mins later. While we were staring at the mazza waiting for the bread. By then we had finished our flask of Arak, we were still waiting for table service so I decided to take matters into my own hands and go to the bar. They are a restaurant that only has table service, not bar service. I ordered a jug of cold water with ice an extra bucket of ice, a flask of Arak and new glasses. This is so that it could be drunk in the traditional way. Later, I also had to clear the table and collect new plates, cutlery and serviettes from the bar so our main meal could be served.

Atmosphere We were sitting on a high table under the dj at an Arabic restaurant, but there was never any Arabic music played. We had come to enjoy a full Arabic experience, but the dj who was wearing aviator sunglasses and appeared to be on another planet, refused to play any Arabic music despite our requests. Our requests were repeatedly rejected and we were even waved off and told where to go by the dj. We even queried senior waiters and managers about the atmosphere on the evening and discussed the misconduct of the dj. (No music or artists we requested were ever played, they only played Indian music)

While I was trying to have our group leave the premises so I could speak to the manager about the unsatisfactory service and experience another member of our group took it upon himself to go and pay the bill because he has a close personal relationship with the owner. If it was up to me I would not have paid the bill until the disservice of the evening was recognised. It is more than likely I never would have paid the bill due to the extreme disappointment from the evening due to the fact that I had to constantly wait and even wait my own table. I will never recommend this as a traditional Arabic restaurant, zero stars. They have brought shame to traditional Arabic service...

We were extremely excited to come spend our special dinner for a dinner buffet, unfortunately our experience was poor. Here’s why :

Watching all the ‘marketing’ instagram reels posted by the restaurant is why we were so eager to go check it out. Clearly, it was just marketing - Most of it didn’t match and the options were less, sizes were smaller, and food wasn’t warm. One of the most disappointing things was the stale bread. Only thing we really liked was the hummus , the chicken rice & the lamb rice, the rest were mediocre.

The service - Which relates to the issue of our ‘stale bread’. As we were a bit disappointed with the stale bread, when one of the waitresses walked by asking if everything was alright, we asked if we could get some fresh bread. I watched her walk off and interact with the other staff behind the counter, and then redirected to someone else. Through observation, I believe they said, ‘just give them whatever there is’ and seemed to give a flippant response. So the waitress grabbed the same stale cold bread and brought it to our table. Which was disappointing. Then someone else from inside the kitchen brought out some “less” stale bread which was still cold but a bit less hard, and the waitress swapped it out for that instead. That was very disappointing for them not really to care about the bare minimum of fresh bread especially when all the instagram reels repeatedly advertise the ‘Fresh hot bread’. It certainly was not fresh.

Another very disappointing thing was the dessert, all the restaurant reels proudly show off the ‘kanifa’ made and laid out for the guests alongside many other desserts. We feel horrible that we were denied them. The only dessert they had was fresh strawberries & marshmallows with some warm chocolate. Like what even? After the stale bread experience, I went over to grab the desserts placed by the bar counter & I was stopped saying ‘sorry, these aren’t included in the buffet’ clearly when all the reels show that? That’s horrible false marketing.

I initially started writing this with a 2 star rating, but as I’m writing this, I believe it does just deserve a 1 star rating.

Whoever is reading this after seeing their instagram reels & are excited to go enjoy it? Nope. You’ll be utterly disappointed.

Thanks...

We were very disappointed with our experience here, we arrived on Sunday for our 40th anniversary and at first thought they might be having a private function, but found out that they do a buffet on Sundays, but told we could order from the menu if we wanted. We ordered the platter for 2 and a bottle of wine, the lady that served us was pleasant and brought us a taste of the wine first then the bottle, so far great, but then shortly after she came back with 2 of the 3 plates, one cold (dip, bread and salad) and the other hot (Lamb Kibbeh, Falafel, cheese and lamb sambousek), we had only just started eating and the 3rd hot plate arrived (kafta, chicken and lamb skewers), we then had to eat as fast as we could because everything was getting cold, no wait staff came near us while we were eating, the sambousek were not nice, the pastry was thick and gluggy, the side sauces/dip were overpowered with garlic, the plate of skewers were cold by the time we got to them, so they were dry and bland with another garlic dipping sauce. When another waitress came to clear our plates, we told her how disappointed we were and that the third plate should have been served 20 to 30 minutes after the first 2 as it was cold by the time we got to it, she responded by saying they don't normally serve them together and the 3 plates are normally spread out, our original waitress then came over and we repeated our complaint, she responded with, they did it that way because of the buffet, we said that should not effect our meal and the chefs weren't doing anything but topping up the buffet, she agreed and said we should have told them during our meal (we would have if anyone had come near us), she then returned with a small plate of dessert left over from the buffet, if you acknowledge a major error and offer compensation, you should ask the customer what they would prefer, like sorry, can we get you some complementary dessert, a glass of wine or $20 discount. when I paid the undiscounted bill, the waitress asked would they see us again, my response was...