Bicho Malo — Restaurant in Ghent

The dishes were extremely tasty. The flavours were authentic and in general just made us extremely happy when they got to the table. The meat was succulent, the cauliflower was a dream even for carnivores and you could just smell that everything was fresh.

Sadly we were seated between the kitchen, toilets and bar. Any service personnel that passed us, ignored us to get dishes to other tables. Whenever we could get their attention, they forgot our requests, we had to ask the same thing again 15 minutes later. Sadly, that was not a one time thing. Five requests for extra drinks were ignored and the restaurant was only half full.

From someone that has worked in restaurants 13+ years: it doesn't matter if the chef wears gloves if they proceed to go through their sweaty and gelled-up hair if they then don't switch gloves and use their gloves to touch ingredients that then go into dishes uncooked. Then take off those gloves, not wash your hands and do the same.

We absolutely loved the food and think the prices are right for the quality, but the experience was...

when I came across this place it was very difficult to determine the price range or find a menu online. whatever, we went anyway as it looked decent enough. when we sat down and received the menu, however, it became clear why the price range was such a secret. at first glance, the prices per item seemed reasonable, but then the menu says they recommend each person to order 2 to 3 items "to share". this to me is quite scammy because of the lack of available info before showing up. when our orders arrived after a decently long wait, the small portion sizes were another unpleasant surprise. the food ended up being extremely mid and not worth the price at all, unless you like paying €14 for a tiny bowl of guacamole with nachos from a bag. you could easily find great Mexican food for half the price nearby. the staff was also quite indifferent and inattentive as they didn't even look in our direction for 10mins after we finished eating. drinks were severely overpriced too....

This was not good. We ended up spending 67€ for 2 cocktails, 1 pre-made margarita and a moscow mule, 2 tostadas and 4 tacos. My husband wanted 2 tacos but the waitress asked to pick 2 flavours so we thought it would be 1 and 1 instead we got 2+2. It felt like a scam. But ok, we didn’t want to argue about this point as well since there was already tension.

After 15 min of waiting I got my two tostadas ate them and we had to wait another 15 minutes for the tacos. My husband complained to me the food is taking too long, the server heard us and said “you have been waiting only 15 min” and that we had to count on it since its a “sharing concept” restaurant. Well no, they clearly forgot about us. Also we did not want to share our food that day.

Anyway, this is no way to treat the customer and since the food not that great either we will...