Bombay Palace Wanaka — Restaurant in South Island

Return visit but surprisingly the service was WAY worse than the first time I came here. We waited for our food for an hour, when I asked them how much longer do we have to wait because we’ve been waiting for AN HOUR, the guy behind the cashier told me, or should I say, tried to correct me by saying “you ordered your food 40 minutes ago” and “we will check”. He then asked one of the staff members who told me that “your food is on the table now”. No apologies. Nothing. BUT I’d like to give a shoutout to the server lady who was very polite and nice and even apologized for the food being served late. To both of the Indian staff members who told me that I ordered my food 40 mins ago and think that it is normal to wait that long without any prior notice when we placed the order, and for fiercely said that my food is now on the table, with that kind of attitude, you better be off doing something else and not be in a customer facing role. It’s such a shame because your food are good, but I would never recommend this restaurant to anyone or come back.

Edit: Thank you for your feedback. I’d like to provide some clarification:

I completely understand that a slight delay of 5-10 minutes can be expected, especially during peak hours. However, waiting for almost hour for our food, without any prior notification, did seem unusually long to us. If you could have let us know that due to not having a booking or the number of people in our group or special occasions, we should expect a long wait time we would have understood or tried to find another place.

Just to clarify the interaction, I didn't raise my voice/said it loudly. I politely inquired about the estimated wait time for our food after nearly an hour of waiting. When you mentioned it had been “40 minutes” since we ordered, I simply asked for an approximate time frame for the remaining wait, to which you responded that you would check, and your colleague confirmed that the food is being served at the table, to which I responded with “good, thanks”. I intended to seek information rather than being disrespectful. Perhaps you should know the difference.

3 While we did enjoy our meal, I was not satisfied with the overall service and the...

Customer Sevice - 0 Food - 0 Location - 10/10

They have an amazing location but don’t know how to treat their customers. We booked a table and requested for the outside but was told it’s a first come first serve basis. When we got there we requested for either window or outside. They weren’t very busy but weren’t very keen to letting us sit outside. We asked again if we could sit outside as the kids were making too much noise and we didn’t want to disturb other guests. We got told we can move but if it gets cold they won’t have a table inside for us (fair enough - it was a Saturday and they were going to get busy later) We sat outside and enjoyed the view as the sun was setting and kids enjoyed their dinner (I preferred feeding the kids first and then have our meal) Our starters came and they were average. Nothing to wow! We ordered our mains and it took forever to come. It started getting cold outside, we were still comfortable but asked if they could turn on the heaters. We asked almost 3 times (they never got turned on until we left - for whatever reasons. It’s not considerate at all) we ordered paneer tikka masala and chilli garlic naan for our mains. And all I could taste was garlic!!! There was so much garlic in the naan that it over powered everything else. I couldn’t eat. There were only tables occupied outside but it felt as if we were neglected for service. They would only come to serve food on the table and head back in. Nobody would come to check if we needed anything etc. I’ve been to so many places but none...

Came here on news years day for dinner only to end up taking it away after waiting for an hour and a half wait and a 15% surcharge. The food itself was decent. Not the best, the butter paneer had too many cloves in it (rookie mistake for any experienced Indian cook). There's a staff shortage currently in Wanaka, so I want to make it clear I'm usually okay with longer wait times in such circumstances, but the service and awareness of the manager and staff is was frustrated us. We got there around 7.10, got seated by 7.20. We ordered drinks and mains. The restaurant was busy, so we understood it'd take a bit. 25 mins, 30 mins, 45 mins passed. Nothing. We didn't order appetizers either. The frustrating part (and really the reason for this review) of all of this was that at NO point did any waiter or manager let us know it would take a while for the food. The couple next to us who arrived very shortly after we did had their appetizers and waited so long they ended up leaving without having their mains cos they told it would be another 10-15 minutes at around 8.20. We asked to get our food takeaway as it was almost 8.30 and we wanted to get back to our room. We finally got out dinner take away. There was pretty much no apology and the waiter even asked how everything was? We hadn't had a single bite of food in an hour and a half? Was super confusing and frustrating for our last...