Merilyn's Kitchen — Restaurant in Calgary

Disappointed/Terrible Service: This review is given with utmost sincerity and no bias. My family and I were visiting Calgary for the 1st time and decided to go to a native restaurant. Firstly, the ambiance and interior are dull, poorly put together and sadly unimpressive. We were met with a rather rude and unfriendly woman who took our order. The food is very over-priced ($25-$45 per plate) and it took longer than expected for our order to be ready. Meanwhile we were asked to pay before seeing the food which is odd, as most restaurants, you pay after you receive your meal. Upon arrival of the food, the wraps of poundo were small, pieces of meat were small-sized, fried and dry and thrown into the soup and the meals were in very small plates, like food serving for a child. The Okra soup looked blended and salted, and still raw green with no trace of palm-oil! The vegetable soup (Eforiro) was stale, leaves strong and over-salted. Let me not talk of the whiteEgusi soup. I was in awe. I wish someone had warned us! We shook our heads in disappointment and complete shock. But we had paid already before we saw the horror that was our “food”. We ate the disappointment and pain, with dissatisfaction written all over us. This “Madam” did not even care but could clearly see we were unimpressed. No form of courtesy. A brash and cocky woman. She needs several classes in customer service. This restaurant should not be in business. Unless they hire an image-refinement consultant to do a complete overhaul of their restaurant (in both service and interior). This is supposed to be a restaurant abroad for goodness sake and not a buka in Ojuelegba! It doesn’t matter how ancient they are or how many years they have been in existence, they still have a long, long way to go. I do not recommend this...

Another attempt at giving a Nigerian restaurant a chance. Service, food, atmosphere was mediocre at best. Its just disappointing.

We are new in Calgary and decided to give this place a try. We ordered the poundo yam & okra (see pic of the okra), rice & ofada, and pepper soup. On arrival, there was no one at the register and we had to wait about 10minutes & it took my partner hollering and waving to get a response. I specifically asked if the ofada was the green or the red one of which the lady that attended to me answered that it was green. Lo and behold it looked more like red pepper stew. The Okra was the one that we thought was pretty poor. From what i know, okra was a ‘draw’ soup but what we were served was surely not Okra. I made this known to the lady that served us that I was surprised by this. I took a couple of scoops to feed myself and my 22month old but could no longer take it. I brought it to the attention of the ladies (1 who i believe is the owner). Her response was ‘so what should i do, what should i do?). To avoid confrontation, i requested to just have the assorted meat and we were ready to leave. I asked for egusi soup instead and guess she had a change of heart and provided the egusi as an exchange. This was gracious on her part. The egusi was a bit better. But i could clearly hear the owner grumbling and speaking in the kitchen about me/ the incident. The other lady said I should have ordered ogbono if I wanted draw soup. Welp! It seemed like a joke to be honest. Its just sad that as much as we try to support our own, we are met with so much disappointment and poor service. Our Nigerian food is very expensive and wished we got more value and better experience out of it. Will not be returning. Order the Okra at...

I haven’t tried the food but I can tell you that these people are so rude and a complete turnoff. I called and was hoping for some recommendations, suggestions on dishes to share with 6 people. I asked about their portions because I wanted to know how much of what to order (I have never been the restaurant or had Nigerian food so I needed some “hand-holding” I guess). The woman went off on me. She had absolutely no patience and was so rude to me. Needless to say, she lost my business that night. Could have easily spent 150- 200 dollars (excluding tip). Learn some manners and talking to your guests even if you think they are asking a stupid question. My suggestion to anyone wanting to try Nigeria food is don’t waste your time with...