Mangata Bistro & Bar — Restaurant in Yulara

We had lunch at this restaurant today, which was within walking distance from our hotel accommodation at Sails in the Desert 🏜. The ambience and modern Australiana decor were relaxing and inviting. While there are positive things I enjoyed here, such as the menu , the food, and ambience, we found the food service a little bit of a letdown left much to be desired. We arrived here at 11:20 am, got ushered to our table. Our food order was taken less than 10 minutes after we got to our seats. We ordered salt and pepper squid, peccorino chips, and garlic herb bread. Pretty basic dish to prepare. However, that was not the case . All the customers that arrived 15-20 minutes later when we arrived had their food served . In our case, it was the opposite. I caught the attention of the same waiter who took down our orders and raised my concerns regarding the long wait time over 45 minutes . I believed that they got the orders all mixed up. The waiter never came back. Instead, the restaurant manager came over to our table and apologised for the delay. The restaurant manager was kind enough to offer us a complimentary drink . Shortly thereafter, the managers intervention, our orders finally arrived The food here is absolutely amazing 💯💯💯. I also appreciated the generous portion size. We loved everything we ordered. We also tried the mocktail- Australian native iced tea and the strawberry mixture. They were both refreshing and unique in taste. This restaurant has got a lot to offer if they could improve their food service delivery. Update: Wr decided to return here for lunch to give it another chance . We ordered nearly the same except the squid I ordered the chicken wings. This time around , our meals came out promptly. The chicken wings were finger licking good. Certainly something I...

The service initially started well, with a new employee taking our order. While they needed to double-check with colleagues, which was understandable, they returned five minutes later and had to retake our entire food and drink order, raising some concerns.

After a 20-minute wait, we received our entrées along with two incorrect main dishes. We accepted the entrées but sent back the mains and had them corrected. Another 20 minutes passed, and only two of our four mains arrived. Assuming the remaining dishes were on their way, we waited another 15 minutes before realizing they were not coming. At that point, a staff member took our order for the third time.

When our mains finally arrived, we finished our meal only to be unexpectedly served a Caesar salad we hadn’t ordered—meant for the neighboring table, who were also experiencing billing issues.

While we understand that training new staff takes time, the experience became frustrating when even the manager had to take our order multiple times, dishes arrived in the wrong sequence, and some meals were significantly delayed. Upon raising these concerns at the time of payment, the response from the staff was indifferent, with no offer of a discount or acknowledgment of the...

Many disappointments unfortunately, after hoping for more based on the many positive reviews.

The service was erratic (sometimes prompt, sometimes long delays in ordering or drinks delivery), the menu structuring made no sense (we weren't allowed to take the 2 or 3 course option unless everyone at the table got exactly the same number of courses... discouraging us from sharing, and ending up with us ordering less overall, oh well) - and the waiter promised that someone would come explain the rationale behind this but they never did.

And then the food was a mixed bag; the bang-bang cauliflower was quite nice, if lacking in bang bang; the "Szechuan tofu" would certainly never be able to find Szechuan province on a map (adding a couple of chili slices to a bland dish is a poor excuse for spicy :(); the bok choi was rather sadly drowned in soy sauce; the kangaroo kebab was quite nicely cooked and seasoned but had a totally mismatched sauce accompanying it. I'm told the lamb shank...