Mamasan — Restaurant in Gold Coast City

We dined at Mamasan last night. We were excited to see the new renovation and see how the cuisine had evolved. When the restaurant was closed, we enjoyed a delightful meal at BabyMama at Nobby Beach.

Things last night started well enough. We were given a high table at the front of the restaurant. The wait staff were enthusiastic and friendly.

We ordered some drinks and starters. Our waitress seemed able to memorise our order without writing anything down. Impressive!

The dishes that we choose to start with - edamame, yellowfin tuna tacos and spanner crab tortellini dumplings - were flavoursome and delicious.

It’s around then that things started to go wrong. I ordered a second beer which took an eternity to arrive and when it finally did (after politely asking for its whereabouts) it was not what I ordered. Thankfully our enthusiastic waiter put things right.

As the night wore on, we started wondering what happened to our Satay Crispy Half Chicken, our wok tossed seasonal greens (with oyster sauce) and the mandatory bowl of steamed jasmine rice. We watched food coming out of the kitchen at regular intervals and delivered to neighbouring tables but alas not to ours! After what seemed an eternity (around 45 minutes), we asked our waitress whether our mains were coming tonight because otherwise we were happy to call it a night and go home half hungry.

She quickly returned to our table with a message that the kitchen was preparing our dishes and they would be with us in a few minutes. She apologised for the “miscommunication” at their end (hmmm…) and kindly offered to wipe the drinks from our tab. A nice gesture but we would have preferred the chicken et al to have arrived on time. By this stage it was well after 930pm. We are of course eating on the Gold Coast and not Madrid.

The chicken was moist and well presented but lacked real flavour (perhaps that was linked to its rushed arrival?). The wok tossed greens was a plate of bok choy which was tasty. The rice however was another story. It was overcooked and tasteless. It was inedible. When we politely pointed this out to the waiter and waitress (they were being more attentive at this stage), they again kindly agreed to take the $4 charge off our final bill.

So it was a disappointing end to the night. Mamasan had promised much but failed to deliver. My wife and I debated whether the restaurant was still going through some teething issues, having reopened only a few weeks earlier. It’s hard to say. As the song from D:Ream goes, things can only get better.

Good luck Mamasan, you are...

I wasn’t even gonna post a review here but the email below was sent 3 days ago and no one had the decency to get back to me, so horrible customer service unfortunately on top of the poor experience we had.

“Good evening Mamasan team,

I went there tonight with my partner to celebrate his birthday as we were hoping to have a special dinner somewhere nice with good recommendations. Unfortunately, that's not what we got with the vegetarian set menu and I'd like to share my thoughts on the menu items. Edamame: overly salted. Miso Eggplant Bao: really tasty, to be honest it was the only thing that we fully enjoyed, too bad it only comes one per person. Vegetable San Choy Bau: veggies were beautifully cooked and flavourful, but 2 leafs of baby cos lettuce per person is a joke, sorry. Not even enough for the amount of vegetables you get. Asian Mushroom Wontons: flavours were nice but they were overcooked, dough was too soft and it was hard to eat as they were falling apart. Sweet corn cakes: worst item, not sure if the oil was old or they were fried for too long. They tasted bitter. Sauce was nice and fresh. Hot + Sweet Eggplant, Chinese Greens and rice: nice meal, but it looked like the massive bowl of rice was trying to compensate for the tiny starter portions.

Overall the food wasn't bad, but all the sauces tasted pretty much the same and I'm sorry but $90pp on a set menu to eat deep fried vegetables in nearly every item is ridiculous. If we were eating expensive meat it could probably justify the price, but very very disappointing vegetarian menu. I'm a chef myself and hardly send reviews like that (first time actually), I also value the labour and techniques put into preparing good food, as well as using quality ingredients, but for the amount of money we spent I was expecting a better service and a flavourful dining experience. Instead, we got average food and service.

Thanks...

Second time I'd eaten here. First was very good, this time decidedly average on several counts. We arrived during mid to late afternoon, had to wait at the entrance for sometime before we were acknowledged and seated (the restaurant was largely empty) and there were plenty of staff around, unfortunately just talking to each other. We ordered five small dishes (they operate a limited menu at that time of the day) plus a cocktail, spirit and wine. Speed of service was very good, but the food disappointing. A couple of the dishes were significantly over (hot) spiced and had little other flavour. The Pork gyoza were so spicy as to almost be inedible had no other real flavouring. The KFC style chicken pieces could've been phenomenal but, again, were particularly spicy - we'd asked the waitress whether they were spicy or not and were told they weren't hot.

At the end of our meal we went to pay and fortunately I checked the bill before handing my card over - $10 for a bottle of still mineral water that we didn't ask for or receive and a charge for an additional portion of one of the dishes that we did (unknowingly - it was served on the same plate) receive but hadn't asked for. I pointed these things out and the manager did remove them, but without any form of apology - he seemed to be addressing the issues in a begrudging way. The same gentleman said the that adding a extra portion to match the table size (3 diners) was a normal practice for them. I've no issue with that, but it was for a dish that only one person would eat (Soft Shell Crab) and we weren't asked whether we wanted an additional portion.

On a positive note, the girl who served us was fantastic - cheerful, fast, polite and smiling. The rest of the staff just seemed to have a grump on! A very disappointing experience in an establishment and at a price where you'd expect more. I'd advocate spending your dining...