Big Fish Eatery — Restaurant in Maungakiekie-Tāmaki

I’m not one to complain or write reviews but I have never had to wait more than half an hour for a coke and juice in a restaurant that was not busy at all. As my daughter is an employed waitress, I know what good service is which is not what we received here tonight. As The Big Fish waitresses were busy talking away, my table was sat down for almost an hour before we had to ask for someone to take our order’s. It’s frustrating being given a false statement of “I’ll be back soon with your drinks and then I can take your food order” only for our table to ask another waitress for service after waiting for over half an hour for our drinks. Our waitress was about to walk away when we had to ask if we could place our order. Side note we were not a large group either. Our food came after almost an hour and half of waiting which was beautiful. However, the fact that we couldn’t eat our meals together because it took 20 - 30 minutes for one meal to come out at a time was poor. No one came to meal check our food. The customer service from the waitresses was lacking attentiveness, initiative and engaging qualities about all of them. On top of this I had to ask four times for 2 teaspoons for my desert. I’m hoping that this was a one off and that potentially they were having a bad night, but when my bill is $210 I expect quality from all aspects of a restaurant because as consumers we are not there soley for the food but the experience as well. I normally tip my waitresses despite there being no tipping culture in New Zealand but I wouldn’t have paid a cent more for the lack of professionalism at this place. Thank you for the food and the ambience. I’m really hoping again, that this was a one off as I have only ever heard great things about this place. The only thing that saved the night from a lower rating...

Dissapointment is the word that comes to mind when I think about our experience at big fish eatery. Having been here in the past, I thought it would be a good idea to bring my partner here for valentines day. You guys make good food, when it gets to the table.

We arrived early for our reservation of 8pm and were seated and had our orders taken for drinks and food promptly. As we sat and waited and the time went on my partner voiced how she was starting to get abit hungry and impatient. I told her to just wait, its valentines day which is a busy day. I work in customer service and try to be as understanding as possible. However, as we waited longer and longer I started to notice people who had arrived after us and ordered after us get their meals first. I thought this was strange but hey some meals take longer to prepare than others. But when I realised that the people that had arrived after us had not only received their starters but also mains, we felt forgotten. Waiting for over an hour after ordering with no heads up, in my view, is not on.

Not once did someone come to us to give us a heads up that they would be a delay or that things were taking longer than usual.

I spoke to one of the managers who seemed nice enough and did apologise. I told him we would probably just leave after I paid for our drinks at which point he told me not to worry about paying. He was the only redeeming factor of our experience.

I sit here writing this review, after having mcdonalds for dinner with my partner on valentines day.

I am not normally one to complain or even write a review let alone leave a resteraunt due to lack of service. Hopefully this will help you guys for the future so the same thing doesn't happen to...

We have been there quite a few times, and I keep giving them another go mainly because it's cheap - but with cheap there is always a little nasty. The first major we had was last year when we got the tuna sashimi that is made into rosettes; it was dark where we were sitting and the fish looked a very strange colour; I held the plate up to smell it, and let's just say if any of us had eaten it we would have been very sick in the next few hours. On this occasion, the staff were profusely apologetic, and obviously mistakes are made (albeit a big one) so to this day we thought it might be a one off. Last night, I made the mistake of going again. We ordered the Hapuka wings, and out of the 3 served, my mum and I managed to eat 1 between us - the meat tasted very strong for 'fresh fish' and it was so salted that it was virtually inedible - the area outside was very crowded, and to save any embarrassment to the restaurant (as a big group behind us had just ordered the Hapuka en-mass), we left the remaining fish at our table and I informed the blonde euro waitress (description for owner :) when I paid; there was no apology, all I got was "I'll inform the chef" and she even charged me for it. Fair play, some of the staff are very nice, and the only reason I didn't send the plate back from our table was because I didn't want to cause a scene for them....but the service I got at the end sucked, and really killed the whole dining and food...