Grameen Restaurant — Restaurant in Sydney

I ordered for takeaway from here and was excited as I don’t indulge in Bangladeshi goodies too often, albeit coming from a Bengali family. The lady at the front counter was just ok and it was difficult to decipher whether she was happy to be doing what she is or not at all.

What made this experience terrible was the older gentleman making pitta at the front of the store, which by the way is a fantastic touch. In fact, when you enter the store you get two food truck stations with street food style preparation of your order on show for customers. It really takes you to the streets of Old Dhaka.

Getting back to the gentleman, he was openly scolding one of his younger service staff, bellowing words such as ‘can you never get anything right’, and referring to him as ‘tui’, an informal and degrading way to speak to someone who you work with. The young staff member looked dejected and the shame of being told off continuously was corroborated with the entire restaurant staring at him. It’s a thing with Bengalis, they love staring at the most unpleasant and unfavourable of times.

This whole debacle was then sealed with the lady making my Jhal Muri giving me the death stare when she incorrectly only made one of my orders and not too. Despite smiling and speaking to her politely, it was clear that she had left her smile at home that day. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if she never brings it to work at all but I will give her the benefit of the doubt.

Workplaces are not meant to be hostile, chaotic and especially a place where you face disrespect. No one deserves to be treated the way that I saw the staff member get treated today and my gut tells me that this wasn’t the first time. For this reason, I will not visit this...

I've been a long-time customer of this restaurant, which, like Mohammad Ashraful's cricket career, has its rare moments of brilliance but is often shockingly inconsistent.

Customer service is generally below par. I've experienced rude interactions several times, although I understand the staff are often busy and stretched thin, which can lead to frustration. However, this doesn’t excuse them from at least greeting customers with a smile.

The food quality depends heavily on the day. Occasionally, they deliver well-prepared, flavorful meals, but more often, the food falls short. Recently, I spent $60 on three "Deshi-Chinese" items ordered via Uber Eats (I know, perhaps a questionable decision, but they’re the only Bangladeshi restaurant available on the app in my area). Out of the three items, two—the fried rice and fried chicken—were disappointingly bland, without a trace of salt or pepper. The cashew nut salad was decent, but this was the first time I’ve ever eaten at a Deshi restaurant where the food lacked basic seasoning. I had to reheat it myself and add salt just to make it palatable. After this experience, I’ve decided not to order from them on Uber Eats again.

The atmosphere is generic and unremarkable.

It’s disappointing, as this restaurant initially had the potential to establish itself as an authentic Deshi eatery. While it may still be popular, inconsistent food and lackluster customer service keep it from feeling like a true home-style experience (aside from the occasional rude interactions...

Super disappointing experience today. We went there for dinner, and as usual tables were unclean, no menus, our table didnt even have a bar code for the online menu. We pressed the call button and after waiting 10 minutes one staff came and started attending another table. We called him over, and i asked if the call bell work. He said it does and gave us a menu. We picked our food and pressed the bell again to order. No one came for over 10 minutes. We pressed the bell a few more times, and then one waiter came looking super annoyed, took our order and didn’t write anything down. When he left, a second waiter came and told us ‘we are not superheroes, you cant press the bell so many times, we get yelled at by our manager’. Then after a long wait we got only half of our food served. They served us the main dishes before the appetisers, and they served me the wrong dish. I had to wait another 15 minutes at least for the right dish, and when it came it smelled off. We weren’t given any cutleries, had to ask for them twice. We asked 3 times for our appetisers over the 1.5 hours we were there. When we were leaving, they packed one of the appetisers for us and said the other one was unavailable. Never going back again, truly disappointed in food, service...