Hunger Monger Seafood — Restaurant in Napier

(I recently edited my review to add an update and the owner of this place posted a rude reply. Owner: should I make my star rating even lower? You’ve got some nerve. You forget we are your customers. How ignorant.)

Original review from Dec 2020: I’ve always loved coming here since arriving in Napier. I’ve spent hundreds of dollars on delicious food here and it never disappoints. But beware when asking for a reservation that they do not honor requests for sitting at a specific table. I placed a reservation through their online form and asked specifically for a seat inside near the windows. When we arrived I found we were seated at a table near the back of the restaurant closest to the toilets. When I asked about this, the lady who seated us briskly explained they never specify which table we will get. I said that’s fine, but that was never clarified in the 4 emails back and forth even though I explicitly requested where we wanted to sit. I could even see her walk over to the other wait staff, tell them something and all of them looked over at us and seemed to be talking about us.

Later that night I emailed and complained about my experience and suggested that they should include a simple disclaimer that they “try to accommodate requests for specific tables but can’t always do that.” That seems like a simple fix. But they replied saying they’re too busy to confirm every aspect of reservation requests.

Well, a disclaimer would have saved me from being confused and having an embarrassing conversation when I arrived that night.

I still gave 4 stars because the excellent food shouldn’t suffer from one lady’s rude explanations and the person taking care of online reservations not taking my suggestions.

As a side note to the team at HMS, if a customer complains, just apologise, see if you can make it right, learn from it and keep moving. Don’t try to argue and make a case for yourself. That’s bad customer service and bad vibes. (update: I got several emails from the owner that were rude and didn’t just say “sorry” as a normal person would. They were dead set on proving I was wrong and they were right. Sad to see terrible customer service like this from the top.)

In spite of all that, I’ll be back again because the rest of the staff are friendly, kind, accommodating and delightful. The food is amazing and it always feels good...

I booked a table for two at 8pm to celebrate our marriage anniversary. We arrived at 8 but since there was no table available, they asked us to sit at the end of the hallway, right next to the toilet door where we could literally hear what is going on inside the toilet. For twenty minutes we guided customers who are looking for the toilet and didn't expect it should be next to where we are sitting. After feeling enough humiliated, we left the restaurant and went home. It was not the anniversary we planned.

Response from the owner 13 minutes ago Thanks for your review Mehran. However we have a different perspective of the evening. We had been fully booked for this evening (Saturday) since 2 days before, and you called to ask for a reservation only at 6:30pm of Saturday evening. You never mentioned on the phone that it was your Anniversary or a special occasion. We did advise we had one table for two available, and that it may be ready around 8pm, as people were already dining on that table when you called. Therefore it’s not fair to kick them off their table if they are not finished. However we did our best to try to accommodate you given the circumstance, and gave you a drink while you waited. When you left at 8:10 without saying why, the table was actually ready for you. Our best suggestion for you next time is to book for your special Anniversary in advance, not at the last moment. All restaurants appreciate advance notice so as to give the best possible experience to the customer.

Dear Owner, First, the fact is that you failed fulfilling your promise of providing us a table, no matter the occasion we were there for, Second, I know how to book for my anniversary, you better focus on your operations and try to keep your promise, Third, you didn't offer drink, I ordered it and tried to pay for it when we were leaving but you didn't accept the payment (you said it's on house), Four, we left exactly at 8:20pm, Five, nobody was forcing you to say you have a table available at 8pm when I called you. You should have say NO to me if the people were already dinning on that table and they were going to sit for the next two hours, Finally, it would benefit you if you try to learn apologizing to your customers when you fail; rather than teaching them how to book for their...

We went to dine at Hunger Monger during the Christmas break 2021. We reserved the table, were on time and liked the ambience. We are foodies (and also cook ourselves) and hence understand food quite well. We enjoyed reading through the menu and found it to be very innovative. We ordered the main fish with Kimchi dish and Korean smashed fries. We loved the food and the innovative combinations.

However, the negative review is for how they made us feel. We were enjoying our meal, but, found scales in our fish. Now, we were okay with this, as we know (from our own experience) that missing scales while cleaning is possible. Because we enjoyed the food, and wanted this restaurant to do well, we informed this to our waiting staff. This was the mature lady who seemed to be in charge. However, the response we got from her was demeaning. Firstly, she told us that cleaning the fish is not their responsibility because they buy the fish pre-cleaned from elsewhere (okay!). Secondly, she told us that finding scales in restaurant food is common. When I told her this is our first experience finding scales in restaurant food, she snapped and told us "oh, you will find more in future".

Now, the reason why we reported the scales was with a constructive mentality. Because we felt that the food is awesome, and if they take a bit more care they can give the best to customers. However, the response we got was belittling us - as if we did not know anything. We agree that mistakes happen, but accepting them and trying to do better is all we wanted, rather than telling us that its our ignorance.

In short, we loved the food, but may not go back just because of how they...