Hannibal Middle Eastern Restaurant — Restaurant in Sydney

My guests and I received the most disorganized and humiliating service at this restaurant. I am sad to write this negative review, because I had reserved Hannibal Glebe for a dear friend's birthday celebration (I called up the restaurant in advance several times, explained the reason for reservation and made sure everything is in order). Unfortunately the evening turned out to be a sour experience. I just list a few of the shortfalls, so you know what to (sadly) expect when you make a reservation at Hannibal Glebe: The waiter did not seem to understand our orders and took about 10 minutes and at least twenty four questions and repetitions for him to get a simple order from our group of eight people. Rather than focusing on what we were ordering, he kept repeating that the banquet price is per person and not per a pair (as if we had argued for anything else. Yes we got it man, this is not our first time ordering from a banquet list for God's sake!!) The server asked my quests where they come from and based on their answer immediately removed the drinks menu saying "I have a friend from your country. You guys don't drink!!" Shockingly judgmental for a restaurant server, don’t you think?!! Furthermore, he autonomously removed all the wine glasses and never bothered to come back with regular water cups (even though we reminded him). The dishes were brought with very long time gaps in between them. Two of my guests who got their food first had to wait for more than 10 minutes for something edible to arrive for the rest of us and by that time their food had turned cold. My guests and I asked for bread three times and it was never brought to our table. I finally had to walk to the reception counter and ask for bread for the 4th time and finally a basket of bread was brought to us several minutes later. In the middle of the evening, because the chicken dishes were brought incomplete and I never got what I had ordered, I requested the server to bring me my shish tawook skewers. He went back and forth to the kitchen a few times and finally said that our orders were fully delivered and he doesn’t know what happened to the chicken (implicitly saying that I was lying. One more insult). I really wanted it to be a good night for my guests so I did not fuss over it with him and said “Okay, consider this a new order, please bring me 2 skewers of shish tawook”. He accepted and left, but came back about ten minutes later only to say that he cannot bring me the skewers, he can only bring it as a platter (again I wonder how come he didn’t know this from the first place!) He was really pushing it, but I still kept my calm and said “that’s okay, please bring the platter”. Twenty (yes 20) minutes passed and my platter never showed up! I had to walk up to the counter again and inquire. Finally a few minutes later, a platter was brought to me but alas it was the wrong one! I had ordered chicken and there came a red meat platter!! 5.My guests and I headed out the restaurant quite disappointed but even this was not the end of the train of insults!! We were not even completely out of the door that another waiter ran out and shouted “You haven’t paid! You haven’t paid! My manager wants to see you!” I presume you can imagine how bad that made me feel in front of my guests. I went back to the counter. A lady claimed that I had not paid. I showed her the receipt and she said that the payment was not processed! (I’m still in awe why the last waiter returned my credit card to me and said goodbye when the payment was not done!!) When I gave her my credit card again not only she did not apologize for their waiter’s error in charging my card, she also fussed why my credit card required a signature! Overall, we left Hannibal Glebe with a very bad memory. I wish I could write a happy and grateful review instead of this as I so much wanted that night to become a sweet birthday memory for my friend. But unfortunately the awfully poor customer service in this restaurant left...

I ate here last weekend for my friends birthday. There was about 10-15 of us. Our experience was not good at all and we would not recommend this place to anyone. Our night started with the waiter pressuring us to order banquets which would be $50pp and said that groups have to order banquets. This was an issue to us as 1. This is quiet expensive and 2. We had numerous people at the table with allergies, severe gluten and dairy intolerances and vegan dietary requirements so this wasn't going to work. After speaking with the manager he allowed us to order individual meals which for myself came to under $20. A lot cheaper. We ordered our mains and breads at 7:30pm with the bread to come out first. It wasn't until around 8:40pm, 1 hr and 10 minutes later that the breads finally came out and we were missing bread and waited an additional 20-30 minutes for the missing bread. My main then came out at around 9pm, 1 hour and 30 minutes after ordering. However, my main was the only meal that came out and it came out cold. I ordered the spinach triangles and they were an entree serving. It was not a main meal and should not be on the main meal page. When my meal came out I waited 10 minutes for everyone else's meals as it is rude to eat. After waiting I realised no one else's food was coming and my friends promoted me go eat my meal before it goes cold even though it came out cold. This is what baffles me. My meal was cold which means it was sitting there for a while, but it wasn't waiting on anything because no other meals came out with it? The belly dancing was supposed to start at 8:30 but didn't go on until after 9pm. The belly dancing was great however. My group ended up complaining various times throughout the night. 9:30-9:40 their meals finally were served. They were all cold. This was 2 hours after we ordered. My group barely ate their food. When we paid for our meals we were offered no compensation even when complaining. On their register it says "5% discount if you pay with cash" so I paid with cash and I asked for my 5% discount and the server who was the manager told me he had no change to give me as he didn't have a till. So why offer 5% on cash then??? He then reached into the tip jar and gave me some coins that wasn't even calculated. Would not recommend and will...

Got to this restaurant at about 10.40pm knowing they close at 12am. We only ordered drinks and an argili as we had just come back from eating dinner elsewhere. Received what we ordered however... Firstly, any place I've had argili at, places the first few coals on there for you and leaves tongs on your table/argili plate so you can manoeuvre them if needed. This place had the tongs over the coals, giving me the great experience of burning my finger. Eventually with my own napkins/wet ones, i picked up the tongs and cooled them down in table water provided. Secondly, at 11.37pm, no one had been around not even once to change coals nor ask if everything was ok. So at this point, i had been smoking with the same coals for approx 45 mins. This head was so big that by then 3 small coals were doing nothing. So at 11.39pm, we knocked on a door to get a waitress' attention, only to realise we were interrupting her taking a bite of some food behind the bar. Finally And she got to the table so i asked for more coal.. which she responded with "were about to close, we have none." I responded saying "we still have 20 mins to smoke this?" (A $50 ARGILI WE ARE PAYING FOR) She just stared at me so i said "can we at least have one coal? There is barely any coal left". She said "ok" and went in. We waited until 11.48pm with no response. So we got up and left and not one waitress apologised. Oh and they came around to the 3 tables left (while we were waiting for our coal) handing them the bill. We understand you want to leave, but we are paying customers and are entitled to fully experience whatever we have ordered. Whilst paying the bill, both waitresses could barely smile or ask how everything was? Hannibal, I'd suggest reviewing your staff. During this covid impacted environment, I'd expect your staff to be a little appreciative of having a job and/or appreciating paying customers coming to keep them in a job. Coming from a middle eastern background and 8 years of hospitality experience, this experience was nothing more than dull. In comparison to any other middle eastern/Mediterranean restaurants I've attended, this has got to be the worst atmosphere I've felt. I'll definitely never...