Toukoul — Restaurant in Brussels

I went to this restaurant as a party of 8 people, which is a good order for the restaurant one would think, if a standard table is occupied by 2 people usually.

We went to the restaurant to celebrate a birthday, so we had taken a cake with us.

When arriving we asked, if it would be ok to consume the cake after dinner. We were refused- and only if we paid 3 euro per person would it be allowed. Now I understand that you are not supposed to bring your own food to a restaurant, but in case of a special occasion like a birthday where we would not even ask for plates or cutlery and being 8 people I am very disappointed for this attitude and inflexibility. On a recent visit to another restaurant, Everest in Bruxelles, it was absolutely no problem to celebrate a similar birthday in a party of 8. We were even provided plates and forks without asking.

It is not like we brought our own bottle of Champagne or wine - we brought something which is not even available on the menu.

A business survives on keeping its customers happy. Some might even say the customer is king, but I certainly did not feel this way at this place. This restaurant is not particularly cheap either. The dishes we ordered cost 60 euro to be shared between 2 people - on top of that drinks, which for the glasses of wine came in very small sizes.

Other things I didn't like very much was, that we had to ask for plates. Perhaps it is Ethiopian style to eat communally without plates, but I would not know where to put the food. Whilst spoons were provided, there were neither forks nor knives.

The food is what it is - it is Ethiopian and it is a new and different experience. Some will like it, some will not, so I will not hold this against this place and my personal opinion in this manner is irrelevant.

However, to amplify an already disappointing experience, we had to vacate the tables at 20:30. Our reservation was at 18:30 - but, I have never heard of a restaurant that imposes a timelimit on its clientele ?

So to sum up:

Despite bringing in a lot of money with 8 guests, we were refused to consume our cake - and charged extra if we wanted to go ahead. Neither forks, knives or plates provided. Very expensive food Imposed a timelimit

The best way to judge a service establishment such as a hotel or restaurant is whether the client wishes to revert again in the future. In my case, this is a...

Where did all of these people with positive reviews eat? This place is horrible. I’ve eaten Ethiopian food at dozens of places all over the world and this is by far the worst.

There were cobwebs on the wall over my date’s head. The wine and water glasses were filthy so I had to clean them with a napkin at the table. We sat down at 9:20. I went to get a waitress at 9:40 since no had visited our table to take a drink order. It was a pretty slow Sunday night and the waitress was just sitting at the bar drinking so it was kind of irritating. We ordered a bottle of wine. They don’t have Tej, which is the national wine of Ethiopia. The waitress says they’ve been out of it for a year (so why can’t they source a few cases or take it off the menu?). We order the Chardonnay. She acts surprised and says it’s a white wine. We know that. So is Tej. Another 15 minutes to get that to the table. So now we’ve been sitting for 35 minutes and this is our first thing to eat or drink. They never offered to fill the water glasses.

The food arrived at 10:15, just under an hour after we sat down. The Ethiopian portions were tasty—the doro watt and the spiced beef and cabbage. But about half of the food was just plain salad, spinach, crumbled cheese, and egg, with no sauce or spice on it at all. No more Ethiopian than what they serve at Burger King.

Had to go find the waitress half way through for more injera. She never once visited the table without our going to find her. We paid $116 euros for two people, and left.

The decor is nice. But the hygiene, service, and food make it a pass. The worst service we’ve had in years. Really...

Terrible service.

We arrived on time to the place. Yet, we had to wait 20min to be seated.

After, it took them 30min to come to “take note”. Since the waitress was mentally writing down the order, she made a mistake with one of the drinks. Can always happen, but it’s certainly less likely if you write down everything.

Food was OK, the discovery menu was high price for the quality. The other 2 mains were quite good.

We ordered dessert, although not the one we initially planned, since they didn’t have any left. However, it took them another 10min to mention they ran out of it.

Finally we got the bill and we found items we never ordered (one cocktail and one main course) adding 43€ extra. They also had merged 2 cocktails under the name of an additional main course (it made sense according to them, since the price was the same). We politely asked the waitress to clarify, who very rudely told us everything was ok on the bill (basically that we were lying) and sent us to talk to the manager.

The manager agreed to remove one cocktail, but he didn’t want to remove the additional dish (30€). After 15min bargaining he only charged us half of it… as if he was doing us a favour!!

Overall, terrible experience with the bill and the customer service received. I will not come back. My advise, if you plan to go, is that you reconfirm many times with the waiter/waitress the amount of dishes and drinks you order to prevent...