Moorish Cafe — Restaurant in Northern Territory

3.75 stars Venue: Moroccan style decoration. Very packed indoor, 3 tables outdoor. Good vibe. Almost full house. Luckily, got a table without booking. Sitting next to the menu table. Always hearing of "bang bang" when the menus were thrown back to the bucket. On the other hand, good to grab a d read the menu at any time. --- 7.2/10

Service: very busy. Very good service and attentive at the very beginning. Arranged a table for us fast. A bottle of tap water was provided. All waitress were nice and serving with smiles (almost). Normal waiting time for mains during the peak hour. The mains were served together. After the mains finished, we waited for a while, not waited, then I grab a menu for dessert (just next to me), waiting again. Asked a waiter who passed behind me to take the order for us. After a while, our waitress laid the table for and apologised. (I think she was off duty soon.) After 30minutes, our desserts were served one by one. --- 7.4/10

Food: wide selection of wine and beverage. A lot of choices for Tapas and Northern African style dishes. Good for sharing. Maybe next visit. Good presentation in Mains. Smaller portion. Slightly pricey. Mains were much better than desserts. Should try tapas (not desserts) here. Grilled Paprika Octopus with Garlic Mashed Potato, Confit Cherry Tomatos & a Tomato Lemon Salsa, $28: octopus was tender and with grilled texture and flavor. Potato was roughly mashed. --- 8/10 Tagine of the Day served with Couscous and Grilled Bread, $32.5: it's lamb today. Full of flavor either in lamb or couscous. --- 8.5/10

Creme Catalana with Housemade Biscotti, $15: simple home dessert. Texture and flavour was good. --- 7.5/10 Chilli Chocolate Pudding with Belgian Choc Chips Ice cream, $19: waited for 30minutes, too high expectation. Too much disappointed for the quantity, quality and presentation. Not matched with the price. Not attractive. I couldn't pour the chocolate shot. I asked a waitress for help (it's not easy to flag a waitress although many people left at that time). She changed a new shot for me immediately. But I already finished my dessert half when a new warm chocolate shot came. The texture of chocolate puddling was very good itself - lava cake actually. Only tasted a very little Chilli flavor in the very middle. It's just a regular lava cake sitting in a ramekin to me. (I tried Chili chocolate somewhere before). Ice cream...

The food was excellent - very tasty with a good selection of dishes on the menu at reasonable prices. The table service was also good, with helpful attentive staff. The only big negative of the evening came at the end when we went to pay the bill. I was in Darwin for work and my work colleague and I had simply assumed we could each pay 50% of the bill on our credit card - a perfectly routine thing to do at every other restaurant in Australia or overseas. (We had both missed the note in fine print at the foot of the menu that said 'We offer one bill per table and do not split bills') However, the person at the register (who appeared to be the owner) absolutely refused to accept two credit card payments for the one bill and insisted that one of us would have to pay the whole bill and sort it out amongst ourselves later. She said this was restaurant policy to 'ensure efficiency' for staff. I asked whether it was perhaps more important to focus on convenience for customers rather than convenience for staff, but she didn't care. A pity, as this spoiled an otherwise enjoyable evening, and I would otherwise have come back on future visits to Darwin several times a year and have recommended it to my friends and colleagues. You need to rethink your ridiculous policy and wake up to the 21st century where people no longer carry cash and expect to be able to pay for their share of a meal with a credit/debit card. Response to owner' comment:

Gertrude,

Your passive/aggressive response exemplifies the problem. You weren't the least bit interested in 'conflict resolution' and made it perfectly clear that you had no intention of showing any flexibility in the application of your unreasonable policy so as to accommodate your customers' needs. 'Successful conflict resolution' requires a willingness to listen and compromise.

You also need to be honest about the facts. I did not book online as your website booking system wasn't working and I had to telephone to make a booking. No mention whatsoever was made when I booked of your 'one card payment per bill' policy.

Perhaps rather than attacking your customers you should listen to their needs and respond accordingly rather than imposing your own...

One of the best restaurants I’ve been to in Darwin so far!

SERVICE All staff here were lovely and welcoming upon arrival. My partner and I had arrived 15 minutes earlier than booked and instead of them getting us to wait standing around or outside, they offered us seats at the bar and drink service off the bat. Couldn’t have asked for a better start. After some drinks we were then escorted to a table.

Throughout the whole night we were checked in on and glasses always filled. What more could you ask for?

The bartender was very enthusiastic and was very helpful when it came to ordering drinks with spot on recommendations. Loved this man

FOOD My partner and I had booked the a Valentine’s day set menu and I was very concerned before hand about what I would and wouldn’t like, but I need not of been worried at all.

I’ll start with the seafood. Being raised by an angry scotsman who hates Seafood, naturally I have also grown to hate it. I did decide to expand my horizons this night and was honestly surprised I could actually stomach the oysters and salmon they had prepared beautifully. Kudos.

The main which was a cut of steak that i cannot remember at the time of writing this. But it was so tender I could’ve cut it with a butter knife and the taste was from a different world when mixed with the mashed potatoes.

It being a night of celebration we of course had to get into the drinking spirit. So we had ordered many cocktails this night and they were honestly all made perfectly I couldn’t believe it.

ATMOSPHERE Beautiful atmosphere, exactly what I was looking for in a date night. The playlist they had on was superb and at a good volume level. Perfect amount of lighting and the inside was a good medium temperature which I was surprised by since the place was packed that night. Noise was at a moderate level the whole night and I honestly couldn’t think of a single thing to critique them on.

Great job to Moorish Cafe,...