Russian Restaurant Arbat — Restaurant in Sofia City

Horrible service, however, the food would be good if served normally. Right upon arrival we picked a table for 2 near the counters that had menus on it. Got the idea we are unwanted guests here right when we were seated near the menu counter that was the same level near me. Waiter of the neighbouring table started stacking dirty plates and empty cups there the whole time we were seated just to leave them right on my left side just so the neighbouring table will not have to have them on theirs. Waiter never brought any bread for the soup that is supposed to be served all the time. We got the food and he took the plates away - that was it, after that he disappeared and went about his other things, had to call him multiple times to even get the receipt since we already got the idea of the attitude we got. Our dishes were taken by another waitress, which I wanted to ask to check us out since the sudden romantic outing was already ruined, however even looking at her I saw that she tried not to even look our way and specifically turned away with disgust she tried to hide so hard. Yes, the place looks nice and is in a good part of the city, however, be prepared that you will receive trash treatment that will leave you with a clear idea that they want to get rid of you as soon as possible and will not be even bothered to bring you some bread with the soup or such. Such a treatment was clearly visible since the waitress who tried not even to look our way was laughing and serving two tables near us that she were non-stop joking with and offering to take nice photos of them. Our waiter made it pretty clear that he either hates his workplace or just hates us as his table and further was acting like he was kind enough to even bring the thing we ordered. Disgusting treatment that left me wonder what did we even do to be treated like that. Even nice food, that is indeed overpriced, if we consider the treatment we received doesn't worth to return. The romantic outing for some Russian dishes I was missing this whole time completely ruined. We were never hoping to receive some kind of an exceptional treatment, but it was clearly visible that we were the only one treated as such when all other tables seemingly were treated right and at least served on a decent level, even got everything served when they ordered the same soup. Be prepared that all the positive reviews will not work your way if you are I guess younger, even if you dress and behave the same way all other tables do that came there for a sudden quiet outing. At this point may have said that straight before we could waste our time for...

Original feedback:

Not sure how is the service at the restaurant , but the delivery is awful: There was no «Пелмени» and they decided not to contact me to negotiate it - e.g. replace with another position or cancel the order. They just decided that I should by myself resolve it with Glovo and left a notice on the bag (on pictures). The order was for 2 people - one of us hasn’t received their food. I’ve ordered 2 portions of pancakes with chocolate for 2 people, they’ve put it in 1 container and decided that it’s not a big deal that it’s 272 grams with packaging instead of 400 grams without:) Order was made at 15:07 and arrived at 16:41 (1.5 hours instead of promised 45-55 minutes), which adds to the boil that one of us left hungry and needed to find another food to eat. Though it may be also an issue with Glovo.

To conclude: if you like to suffer, wait a long time and be hungry after the order - that’s a best place to order. If you don’t like to suffer - save your nerves and choose another place.

——

Added after the reply of the owner:

I’ve rarely seen such a poor response to negative reviews, and it just proves the bad service. The excuse about 120 grams is ridiculous—both the bill and my Glovo order clearly show that one portion is 200 grams (I’ve shared the photos). I even checked your website to make sure it wasn’t a mistake and provided a screenshot as proof :)

Also, other restaurants in similar situations found a way to contact me when there were issues with the order or at least replaced the food so the person who ordered isn’t...

The food was terrible. We had 3 bottles of wine, 4 main 2 soups and meat. The soup was cold and disgusting, and it was the only soup available out of 5, same for the mussels not available. The only waitress didn’t speak English and couldn’t explain what the dishes were, hard to tell since they had Russians names. Google helped though. The dumplings were cold and there was an underlying broth of water due to condensation which was dripping from them, not intended to be there. The worst part was they don’t accept card payments, so I was supposed to have 200 bgn cash on myself, which I didn’t. They didn’t give me a fiscal receipt and when I asked for the manager I waited 30 mins without anybody showing up, I went inside and checked everywhere but he/she was nowhere to be found. In the end for the sake of the night I decided, reluctantly, to go to the nearest atm, 300mt, and withdraw the cash. So they got away with it in black. Hooray for the Russian mafia. Never going there again, period. The food is trash, if you have tastebuds of course. If you don’t and you are ok with 9 different flavors mixed together with no skills and are full of...