Restaurant Asmara — Restaurant in Amsterdam

After being customers for a long time, my friends and I are not going there anymore. All the reviews here are about food, and the food is nice, yes. But we got internal information leaked and learned how the owner abuses workers inside. When facing customers, he is such a nice and friendly person, but inside, he is completely different. First of all, he does not allow workers to take payment, and you have to stand long waiting for him to pay. This is to direct all tips from workers to his accounts; guess what he expressly asks for tips, which is the reason for him to forbid other workers from receiving payments. We met an intelligent guy, who used to work there, on the street and after greeting him, asked why we hadn't seen him there later days. The guy smiled and replied, "I'm from the academy and do not want to be there anymore. I tried to support myself working there, but it's no longer my thing." We took time to discover more and asked why not, if you can support yourself. He said, "I know, but like I said, I know my rights and do not allow anyone to abuse me." What do you mean by abuse? we asked, and the gay replied "... iiim I can't tell you all, but the owner does not pay salary unless I ask repeatedly, I have the right to work in the Netherlands, and he does not want to pay a minimum legal wage, there is no break and you work 7 hours uninterrupted, yet he decides the payment as he likes and, when you ask for discussion, he replies 'you're poor and have no option, just work and I give you.' Last month, he deducted 700 euros from my salary, and I asked the reason, but no proper response other than I'll pay you next time. I told him I was stopping working and handed the key over, guess what, he locked me in and forced me to stay. But I told him I could enforce my rights, and he feared and released me. If you don't believe me, you can go and ask a lady who still works there; she was standing and watching everything. The boy is smart enough with evidence and showed us WhatsApp messages he exchanged with the owner to get his 700 euros back after stopping working, and the time of the message and the time of the credit of 700 euros to his account match, the message became immediately before the transfer time. We are a media group and are considering conducting a deep interview with a gay person and publishing his story in the newspaper with evidence. This is important because people fled their country and came to Europe for a better life, and they should not be forced, enslaved, and abused by here by unethical business owners. Authorities should also enquire about this restaurant's workers, as we have come to know that the man employs only those who have no valid right to work in this country, abuses them by appealing to their weaknesses, and asks for a minimum legal wage.

SHAME ON YOU. You laugh and appear nice before customers and act like you love the workers, but behind you the reality reads something fishy. We request the owner to make corrections on the way the restaurant recruits workers and treats...

I went here to try and share some african culture with some of my foreigner friends. When we arrived and sat down, the server immediately asked us in a relatively displeasing tone that he was not expecting us. No where does it indicate that you need to make a reservation on their Google profile. Eventually he left us with some menus. We waited around 10minutes before he came back (note that there was only one other table that was still eating) We wanted to get a combination of vegan options. He told us that we can't do that. He started arguing and we couldn't understand why we couldn't get the vegan combo of our choice. He then eventually told us that we can only eat what they cooked that day. If he communicated that relatively early on we would've been able to decide whether it's worth eating there. When we thought of perhaps going to a different restaurant, he told us to go because he "takes our money and gives us everything". And made a point in saying that he doesn't need us. Eventually we just took what he said we could have just to keep the peace. He kept insisting we order more food even though not all of us wanted to eat and told us we couldn't get 1 serving of a dish but needed to take 2. The food was relatively good with the occasional imbalance of flavour. Perhaps with another server who had better communication skills, we would've enjoyed our "eastern african"...

The person who helped, I assume he's the owner, kept forcing his choice on me I kept saying I want a number 12 and he kept insisting that he'll bring a number 10. If there is one thing I hate is others telling me what I should pick when they're not the one paying for it. He insisted to the point that I chose to walk away instead of entertaining his arrogant behavior. Another thing that I would like to mention is that if you have so much problem with dutch people then go to your own country and speak your own language there. I'm a brown expat and this man automatically assumed that I'm a dutch hater so he started telling me how he forces dutch people to speak English because that's what his prime minister told him to do to "these dutch people". Well tell your prime minister to keep people like you in their own country. And if you want to stay in another country then at least respect them and their way of life. You people are a disgrace here and it's because of you that the rest of us are treated...