Mandaloun — Restaurant in Rome

TLDR - they think a meal with bones can be called boneless. They will make you pay for any mistakes they make. They charge a service fee which I thought was illegal in this region.

Folks I’m not some Karen that leaves 1 star reviews willy nilly. I run a business too and I know how devastating it can be, but in this case I feel it is deserved.

I had dinner at 7:30pm on a Tuesday, the restaurant was fairly slow. It took them nearly an hour to bring out 3 entrees. I ordered the Farrouj Meshwe which is “boneless chicken”, and in my first bite there was a large bone. At first I thought accidents happen, so I kept eating. The very next bite was ANOTHER large bone. At this point I was disgusted so i called the server over to tell him, and then he began arguing with me. “It is boneless, the shoulders don’t count” was his response. We kept going back and forth, me asking why you call it boneless if it has bones and him saying that shoulder bones don’t count.

I’ve eaten enough chicken to know it was chicken thigh, so I don’t know why he felt compelled to blatantly lie to me. He took a very confrontational tone and asked “so what do you want me to do about it”. I asked if they could replace my meal with the shish taouk. The server eventually brought back not the full shish taouk (chicken kebab) entree, but about 1/2 a kebabs worth with a piece of bread draped over it. Maybe 3 euro worth.

I did eat it, but I had only eaten 10% of the chicken bone meal. They never bothered to take that plate from the table even though I set it at the end of the table to note that I was done with it.

I asked for the check and they handed it to me, and it still had the 18 euro for the boney meal I didn’t eat. I told them I wasn’t paying for it and I’d rather pay for the small amount of chicken kebab they brought out instead. He argues with me some more and will only agree to waive the 10% “service fee”. My wife started getting uncomfortable so I paid and left. Horrible...

The Worst Shisha I've Ever Had – Avoid at All Costs

I visited this shisha bar today in Rome with two friends, and I can confidently say this was the worst shisha I’ve ever smoked — and I’ve smoked shisha all over the world. From Dubai, Spain, Turkey, Jordan, Germany, Austria, Bosnia, Croatia, Amsterdam, Brussels... the list goes on. Nowhere have I experienced something this disappointing.

We paid 20 euros for a grape-flavored shisha, and all I could taste was coal — absolutely no grape flavor at all. I mentioned this to the male staff member, hoping he might offer a solution or at least acknowledge the issue. Instead, he was rude and dismissive, insisting this was "normal." No offer to change it, no apology, no discount — nothing.

To be fair, the female waitress was kind and polite, but unfortunately, that wasn’t enough to save the experience.

If you're looking for a place to enjoy shisha in Rome, do yourself a favor and stay far away from this one. Even if they offered it for free, I wouldn’t...

We decided to go for a late dinner here as it was close to our hotel and looked good every time we passed it. We decided to sit inside as didn’t want to be around the smokers outside due to having the children with us but there was no atmosphere inside and it was just dead.

We ordered a few things but the batata harra were so dry and flavourless like they had been made yday and then microwaved. When I complained the waitress ‘Martina’ said that’s just how they make them! We sent them back as I didn't want to give the kids cold potatoes and there was no offer to re make them or for an alternative as some French fries would have done the job instead! The bread was also very dry and the humous - flavourless. We have been to many Lebanese restaurants and this has been the worst.

The halloumi, salad and falafel were good though.

To top it off they added a cover and bread charge as well as a service charge!

Would...