Seasonal Tastes — Restaurant in West Bengal

I had made a reservation for Sunday Brunch at Seasonal Tastes to celebrate my daughter’s birthday with family and friends on 24th Nov.

It was the most disappointing, disastrous and frustrating experience I have ever had.

We went to the 10th floor at Seasonal Tastes at 12:30 pm, where we were told by the staff that the buffet would be set up in some other floor. We came down to the reception to enquire about the same and found that the reception desk was clueless about the Sunday Brunch venue. After quite some time we were told that they have launched a ‘Lawn Edition’ of Sunday Brunch and we were escorted outside into the lawn.

I asked why we were not informed about this venue change as this was not something I had signed up for. The management could not explain and seemed totally clueless. I had planned my daughter’s birthday celebration in Westin based on my earlier experience here which is something I could vouch for. But I was not happy to be part of this Lawn Edition Experiment without even being informed. However since I had already done my payment through the Nearby App I walked into the buffet with my birthday girl and guests.

An elaborate buffet was set up on the periphery of the lawn. The seating arrangement was at the centre without any shade. We had senior citizens in our group and we were not comfortable for them to sit in the sun. But there was no option but to settle for tables which were partially in the shadow of the building.

Now brace yourselves for the climax. All flies in Rajarhat, New town region were invited for this Lawn Edition Sunday Brunch and they had arrived much earlier than us. Flies were all over the spread starting from starters, chat, grill, desserts. Not sure if the flies had informed the management that they do not have any liking for the average main course menu, because those were the only food items which were covered.

The staff at each of these counters and the management were overlooking with great responsibility that the flies were served well as none of them bothered to wave them away or cover the food. When we complained regarding the fly infested buffet spread, they for the first time realized that this may not be an ideal buffet spread setting. After we shared with them our piece of mind they managed to get some fly repellant bats and food wraps. By that time all the food items were soiled with vomit, urine, faeces, saliva and may be to make things interesting even eggs of those flies.

While I was doing the booking I had other options in mind like J W Marriott, but since Westin is closer to my place and their dessert menu is perhaps the best in town I opted for Westin Seasonal Tastes. But I had to ask my birthday girl not to have any of the delicacies in the dessert spread as they were infested with flies. So my daughter only admired the delicacies on her birthday without tasting one and with me having paid for the Great Westin Sunday Brunch.

Questions:

Why did the management of Seasonal tastes not communicate that there is change of venue and ambience ? The buffet price one pays is inclusive of the value of experience from ambience and service. How can one change ambience without informing guests who are prebooking?

How dare the management of Seasonal Tastes serve fly infested food. While 5 star hotels are supposed to serve the most delicious tasting and delicious looking food, hygiene is something that is prerequisite for any food business. Even a phuchkawala has a covered space in his cart but Seasonal Tastes planned otherwise.

It was very embarrassing for me as my guests could not enjoy most of the food menu. I lost my face by trusting the ‘Great Westin Sunday Brunch’. How does the management plan to compensate for this loss? Can I get my payment refunded?

The management would be clearly responsible for any food poisoning or health hazard caused due to the experience today, how do they plan to compensate for fooling around with people’s health?

Anyways, the most disgusting experience of hosting my daughter’s birthday party at a...

When we visit a 5 star property, there are certain expectations. Westin Kolkata was also on my wishlist after reading the wonderful reviews. However, the kind of experience I had is forcing me to give them a poor rating. Being a food influencer, I visit plenty of restaurants and, hence, I am trying to point out the improvements they need to immediately implement.

We had booked via Zomato. When I fortunately called up the restaurant to confirm, they denied the existence of any such booking. 😲 So, I had to book once again telling them it is my mother's birthday and we would require a complimentary cake. 😊 They had asked me to request for a message which I mentioned. However, on 18 July, on the day of our visit for lunch, this message had astonishingly vanished. 😂 When they finally delivered the cake on our table, the waitress was not even courteous enough to wish my mother. Is that what they call hospitality?😜 And, when they packed the cake for us, they didn't even bother to take the candle out! 🙄

The table was unattended most of the times. Cutlery was not being changed. And, they were keeping the used cutlery with leftover bones and forcing us to use the same. That was seriously a gross experience.😫 While having the dessert, we requested for a dessert spoon and, ta-da! They gave us a fork! 😂 All the dishes had stains and some even had food stains on them! Totally unhygienic!🤮

Coming to the food quantity, when you know that around 40 diners are eating simultaneously, how can you keep food in every counter sufficient to feed two people only? 😐 Moreover, most of them were live counters and the chefs were happily waiting at the counter, watching us complain that food needs to be refilled and then again filling food sufficient for two people. Oh my God! They need to know how to cook in plenty! 😂

Now let's talk about some food items. For starters, there was a live counter yet everything was cold. We tried shrimps, chicken kebabs, paneer tikka, and pan fried fish (the only saviour). The mocktail had watermelon and basil as the key ingredients and wasn't upto the mark. 😓 The international section hardly had the international cuisine. Poached fish and roasted chicken were bad but worth swallowing. When we asked for pasta in white sauce with chicken and veggies, we were served spaghetti that tasted pathetic. Plus, it had 4 chicken chunks and 1 chunk of red bell pepper. 😂 Mutton was replaced with cheap and bad quality goat meat in the Indian section. Biryani was mind-blowing pathetic. The fish was rotten and stale and filled with salt. 🤮 Jasmine rice was overcooked in the Asian section. The Noodles were comparatively better. I read good reviews on their dessert. My God! We could not have them! The taste was pathetic! Who dilutes the whipped cream in a black forest cake with water?😲 The rest were equally pathetic. The only good dish was the papdi chaat. I would like to extend my gratitude to the young boy at that live counter for filling my hungry stomach!🙏 And if you want to have ice-cream, please hire a bodybuilder or a weightlifter! 🤣

No hard feelings but Seasonal Tastes is nowhere close to a fine dining restaurant. Please improve the food quality and hospitality. There are guests dining from different cities and counties. Please don't degrade the name of our city because Kolkata is truly known for its hospitality. 🙏

Wishing you all...

I am writing this review for the benefit of all so that people come to know the reality of this place. This is a mariott group of hotels and extremely badly managed, they never pick your calls even if you have advance booking. We booked for buffet in advance but they are just cheating the people and its time action should be taken against them, because even if you book in advance with options such as zomato and swiggy which provide a discount on the buffet they will not accept it because they will get less than the mrp of the buffet but they will accept the bookings on these platforms which specifically mention that a discount will be provided. So in spite of booking in advance as well as reaching well within the booking time the management who are a bunch of liars will say they dont accept these payments, can you believe it. Anyway their buffet is not worth the mrp its just overhyped and though they have some varieties of foods not even a single item stands out. Even if you get the discount I think its still not worth it, Mariott has been known over the past few years famous for cheating and misleading the customers wiith offers on various apps and then telling white lies and saying they dont provide those offers when you reach there as they take avantage of the fact that you are already there and hence assume you would take their overpriced buffet no matter what do dont make this mistake if they dont give the offers which are clearly mentioned on the apps in spite of advance booking done these people should be reported to the consumer forum for such open fraud and you should directly contact those companies immediately in which these offers are there for this restaurant and complaint to them that the restaurant is cheating the people and not giving discounts even though paid bookings have been done in advance. The staff is not to blame here because they are simply instructed by the management to mislead and lie to the customers but its high time these people are reported coz they have been getting away with this fraud for far too long now. All in all is just good for the view their buffet is totally worthless and even small scale restaurant buffet nowadays provide some standout items even though all items are not good but in this namesake 5 star not even a single item stands out which is a matter of shame. So its just a overhyped buffet and very highly overpriced and the main intention of the management is to mislead the customers on discounts and then tell lies when the customers arrive at the restaurant that they dont provide those discounts even though they accept the paid bookings for the same!! And let me also tell you this is the very reason they wont pick any calls even if you did the advance booking and you want to inform them that have you have a discount offer because they wait for you to come at the restaurant where you will no choice but to dine there itself because of its remote location as it will take a lot of time to go for another buffet from there, these are their cheap tactics. I know many might not like the things I have said but I want people to know the truth about how these people operate so that they can no longer fool the people. As they say you can fool some of the people some of the time but you cannot fool all the people...