Loka Bistro — Restaurant in Batam City

I ate here with my partner last night and everything was good until they messed up our drinks.

They gave my partner’s glass to other people sitting at another table. These people had already been touching this glass and doing whatever else to it.

Once the server brought my drink he quickly realised that he messed up. He took the glass from my partner away from the other table after it had been sitting there for over 5+ minutes and tried to serve it to us.

We told him that we do not want to drink out of a glass that has been given to complete strangers. We do not know what these people have done to it and we have seen them repeatedly grab the glass.

He took the glass back to the bar while I held my eyes on him and the glass the entire time to see if they would actually remake the drink. We saw him laughing with the bar guy, who probably said something along the lines of “just wipe it off”. This is exactly what he did. I saw the waiter wipe the glass that the other people had been touching and playing with for over 5 minutes “clean”. He then waited a couple of minutes to return us this dirty glass.

I shook my head at him and told him how extremely disrespectful it is what he is doing. This shows that he thinks that we are stupid and that he can mock us. He laughed in my face, put down the glass and walked away quickly.

At this point we had already ordered food and drinks with a total of 558.900 rupiah. We have eaten the food and my partner even drank her drink as she felt bad making me order another drink.

We feel disgusted by seeing how they treat the food safety of their guests by simply refusing to remake a drink that has been given to other people for an extended period of time.

Just imagine what they would do to your food if they drop it on the kitchen floor. And yes, this is a valid concern because you also don’t respect us enough to recycle a drink to us that has previously been given to complete strangers.

We have eaten the food and drank our drinks but we didn’t enjoy our dinner anymore. The food has most likely been fine but the dinner was tense and not enjoyable knowing how little they value food safety. This was the last dinner me and my partner had since I will be abroad for 2 months. Therefore we didn’t want to create even more of a problem since we get laughed in our face for showing our concerns anyway.

I will personally never return to this place because their staff is untrained about food safety and cross contamination. I will make sure to tell my business partners to stay away from this place because getting their potential clients sick isn’t a good look while conducting business.

We understand completely that for example a food stall on the side of the road won’t be held to the same health standards. However this is a supposed “high end” restaurant charging over 550k rupiah for 2 drinks, 2 main courses, 2 desserts and 1 starter.

I advise the owners of this restaurant to train their staff in food safety, cross contamination and being respectful to guests. Do not get me wrong, most staff members were very welcoming and respectful!

I hope playing with our health was worth it for you. It all could’ve been avoided by taking us seriously regarding food safety and cross contamination and to just remake the drink.

UPDATE: my partner has been sick since yesterday. This is most likely caused by the fact that the waiter wiped the glass off with a dirty cloth!

BE AWARE! These people do not take food safety seriously and refuse to take...

Came with a high expectation for the food. The vibe of the place is nice and cozy. There are 2 toilets. The big and the small one, the small one needs to be cleaned thoroughly, since all the excess tissue are everywhere.

For the food. From the visual presentation, it was great, a solid 8/10 but from the taste department, it’s average in my opinion and needs to be improved.

We ordered 3 items.

1 Pizza Quatro Formagi 7/10; 95k The pizza was fine, the dough is not too soggy, but i think maple syrup is not the best combo for us.

A little tips, just ask them to serve the pizza 15 minutes after the main course arrived, so the pizza will stay warm and fresh after eating the main course.

1 Carbonara Fettuccine 5/10; 90k My wife loves carbonara so much, but with that kinda high price tag, we’re expecting more, but the taste is bland. The creaminess was there but not the taste. It’s like they forgot to add one more ingredient there. We’ve had better carbonara with lower price to taste ratio somewhere else. For example from Commonspace.

1 Pan Seared Chicken W. Peppercorn (with fries) 8/10; 85k This one was the star between the rest of our order. The tenderness of the chicken was on point. The fries were amazing. They made it in house since they’re using the real potatoes and not the store bought french fries. But it’s a little bit salty. This is probably the best taste to price ratio. And we recommend to order this instead the other 2.

Conclusion:

This review is only for THOSE 3 ITEMS that we ordered. Overall food experience is 6.5/10 for the price to taste ratio.

I’m not a food critic, but just a standard customer. And i hope this review could improve Loka in the future.

The place was good, the staff was friendly, and you get a free glass of water even if you’re not ordering drinks.

If you want to celebrate an achievement or reward yourself, this might be the place for it. But just lower your...

I need to give a bad reviews this cafe. Wanted to try their food. I place 4 kinds of foods around 12.00pm. At 12.30pm they send me carrot juice and hot tea. 12.45pm send me spaghetti. At 13.45pm i ask where is my rest offer, the waitress came and 13.15pm and told me do you want to cancel due to the kitchen can’t make your orders. I was so crazy and told him, are you sure you are telling me to cancel the order after I have waited for 1 1/2 hrs. Sorry sir, we can’t serve your food due to many order and our chef can’t make the food. I told is find and cancel all my orders.

When I when to the cashier counter, they was other few customers are agree and waited for 2 hour and the food never arrive. Most of them was telling, is it this way you treat your customers! If you are not well prepared l, don’t open for business.

Other birthday party person also was upset due to their service. Waited for 2 hours and the foods didn’t arrive.

I will suggest to all people who wanted to try at this place, do not go here. If you want to go, please wait for your food a...