Orient Experience — Restaurant in Venice

Avoid this place like the plague because you just might wind up with a severe case of food borne illness to ruin your vacation.

We had 6 people in our party, 3 ordered the same dish, 3 ordered different dishes, and ALL dishes were COLD! This is extremely dangerous when you have rice, chicken, spinach, beef, or lamb. The bacteria in all of these items can cause severe health issues particularly when these foods are not properly re-heated.

Since we're on the topic of meats, we ordered dishes that were supposed to have beef and chicken, or lamb and beef. Not all the meats were present in either of the combinations.

One person in our group is a health inspector in the USA and respectfully approached the waitstaff, raising the concerns of the food temperatures.

The cook in the kitchen was very rude and refused to listen to the issues. She claimed that everything was heated correctly.

When you place your finger on the chicken and it is refrigerator cold, there is no way that anything was properly reheated.

The waiter claimed this was the first time something like this ever happened. As much as I would like to believe him, with 6 of 6 meals coming out cold, this is not a fluke. This is their standard practice, or at least the standard practice of the cook on duty that night. (Oct. 11, 2024)

So much for following the recommendations of celebrity foodie, Stanley Tucci. His recommendations no longer carry any value...

We went there a couple of days ago, a bit fed up of pizza and pasta.

We ordered kabuli rice with lambs , chicken, aubergines with sauce. Well there were 2 tiny black piece of lamb (same size as a dice), a chichen leg, aubergine with sauce and rice. How could they mention the lamb here ? 🤔

One of the waitress was rushing us to remove our humus dish (starter) and the main dish. The restaurant was not busy at all. The food was nothing special, we didn't even finish our meal.

They charged us 3€ for tap water (???) and 5€ (for 2) for the cutlery/coperto (however it wasn't written on the menu as they erased the price). We traveled a lot in Italy lately and perfectly know the customs; but charging 3€ for tap water (we never saw that in other Italian towns) and 5€ for cutlery/coperto without giving us bread or bread sticks, so a total of 8€ = almost the price of a dish, it's a huge rip-off ! We spent too much money for what we got !

Also this restaurant didn't have their own kitchen but took the food from another restaurant nearby, which meant your dish "travels" from another restaurant to the restaurant where you eat. So the dish "travels" inside a kitchen, outside on the street and inside their restaurant, and the dish is not even protected by a plate 🙄. Do they respect the rules of cleanliness...

I had a very disappointing Orient experience today. I've eaten in the restaurant twice before and loved it! That's why I went into Venice today with high expectations. Unfortunately the restaurant wasn't open in the afternoon even though it said so online. We were instead referred to their take away next door. I understand that it isn't the same as the restaurant but it went from amazing to awful. The food was cold since the guy only warmed it in the oven for about a minute, and served on paper plates with wooden disposable cutlery. The worst part was that the staff member obviously had a bad cold and shouldn't have been working. He was coughing and sniffling loudly throughout our whole visit and even worse, picked some of the food up with his hands and put it back into the cantine after it had fallen on the side. He then continued to have a loud conversation on his phone while we were eating and on top of that let out a loud burp. It was really unprofessional behaviour. The food is good but to serve it cold like that is unworthy the restaurants name. I was so disappointed. I'm reluctant to go there again but will give Orient experience one more chance in the future. In the meantime I suggest that you avoid their takeout section to spare yourself the...