Ora Bistro — Restaurant in Ōtara-Papatoetoe

Booked in for dinner on a Friday night with 6 friends. We were asked to pre-order the day before to avoid long wait times. On arrival at 6.30pm, our food was served right away. Although this was convenient, we were hoping to have entrees and drinks beforehand. The restaurant was not busy during this time. Half of our group ordered the Prawn Linguine - they all agreed this dish lacked flavour and the prawns seemed simple boiled. Another friend and myself had the lamb rump (med rare) - this dish however was cooked to perfection and delicious. We decided to order some drinks during dinner - we all ordered a sangria each. According to the menu this should have consisted of red wine, Juice, lemonade and some mint plus fresh fruits. Our glasses were received half full and it tasted like watered down red wine with apples and a bit of kiwifruit. This was probably the most gross sangria we have ever had. We chose not to mention it and just enjoy each other's company. When we were leaving we noticed the staff member (did not look like a qualified or experienced bartender) making another sangria for another patron, it appeared she was just checking in whatever she had available and with no measurements of portions, she didn't even put any lemonade or mint in (which was most likely missing from our drinks). Nonetheless the staff were friendly.

I would suggest hiring an experienced bartender for making proper drinks especially at the price you charge for drinks. Also wait for guests to be seated and ask if we were ready for our mains.

We most likely would not...

It was the spur of the moment ever since I saw the building nearby Dennys and decided to try my luck. Luckily it was quiet in the afternoon and decided to order my food. At first being seated, it did took awhile to get the waitress attention assuming that there was some emergency she need to tend to on her phone, after a couple of times trying to get their attention, I got up wanting to order.

After clarifying the food ingredients and order a coffee, the wait of the food was awfully late. I didn't think much of it until just as I was going to get up to find out what was wrong, my food arrived.

Food arrived rather late but because I was practically starving I ate it so fast I didn't even check the time. Food review - ordered the lamb loin had asked for medium rare but the lamb was almost cooked to well done with the exception of medium well and part of it was dry. Seaweed (wakabe) was lightly spiced and under that was the kumara was just as delicious when eaten together. Aside from the lamb, everything was so delicious! I think I would be very keen to come back if I didn't have to wait as long and it would be nice to have some sort of communication between the customer and waitress of why the food isn't coming out.

Then paying for the food, I only had to pay half the price because of what had happened. Everyone seem to be really nice but overall the service seem to be lacking in little areas. Apologies for this...

The food was okay, but the service was horrible. It took us 20 minutes for someone to take an order out of us, and then 20 minutes later when I got my meal, my partner didn’t get his until I was almost done with mine. Then after we were both finished, we sat for another 20 minutes with empty plates on our table even though the staff walked past our table at least 4 times and didn’t decide to clear it. Not only that but at the beginning of our night here, the staff pointed at us and clearly was talking about us right in front of our faces clearly judging us because we were young and at a fancy restaurant probably thinking we couldn’t pay for the meal. Not only that but they were “too busy” to answer the phone when 2 of the staff were standing around doing nothing. Deserts didn’t take as long to come as the food which was good however both me and my partners crème brûlée’s were cold instead of warm. I had the Wagyu cheese burger, my fries were cold, and my burger was very plain. My partner had the pork belly and it was a decent size but for $42 was definitely not worth it. I am very under whelmed with my...