Hekayat Bahr حكاية بحر — Restaurant in Municipality of Olaya

I will be sharing my first hand experience on this so called "seafood" restaurant today dated August 16th. We decided to dine as the reviews on this restaurant was commendable.

We arrived on the vinicity, within 15 minutes travel time from the area we came from. The travel time is acceptable since it`s rush hour and the traffic jam of most people within the range.

The place is a typical sea side atmosphere, which it`s expected a motive for a seafoods ambience.

As we arrived, we greeted promptly and assisted us to where to we wanted to be sitted. We went upstairs, but climate is steaming hot, there is no ventilation of air. We didn`t felt there was air-conditioning functioning and there were no guests upstairs.

As went down, we decided to be sitted on the ground area as we consider it`s near to the fish section and easily to be attended with.

I HAVE to call the attention of the staff, as how is to order being taken and made, she blandly said - use the QR code and check on the menu, in which we did. Upon deciding on what we wanted to have. We called her attention Again, she informed me and my colleague that I needed to go to the fish area and informed anyone about our order and state what table were are that time (table 18) -, where the couple of male staff were standing assisting other guests. Without proper information/details given to us. I went to Abdulrahman, I gave our order - specifically the "Captain Platter" to be grilled and I included our drinks as well within that time. We were not informed on how long it will take, time frame of waiting time. We were there exactly 1730H and had orders given immediately as we were breaking our fast that time and we opted to have early dinner.

On the table, the female server assigned to the area on where were seated came and without any word said, just gave us complimentary bread and spreads while waiting for the order to come about.

As guests arriving one after another, we were so patient in waiting as we were busy trying to buy the time by talking to each other. It was then, a certain Raquel came to us and inquire about on our order in which we did emphasized it was taken few minutes ago. We again, given complimentary bread and spreads.

As time goes by, we noticed that majority of the guests arrived after us were already served and the food was given. To top it off, they were given MUCH treatment.

I immediately went to Abdulrahman in the fish area and informed about the order, he went immediately to the kitchen. To my dismay, our order was not even started, it`s only started upon being followed up MADE.

When the order came, it was incomplete and there was a wrong order as we were SO specific that we wanted it grilled, Abdulrahman agreed it will be done but it`s was fried when the order was given to us.

The order itself came exactly 1 hour and 30 minutes of waiting. I was totally appalled. These two female servers were completely ignoring us and not passing over us - to the point of not informing us the status of the said order AT ALL!!!

To make it most worst, these two female staff wholly denied of their unprofessional and imprudent customer service. They can visit more with other guests and not us, that made it more unacceptable that we came before all these guests came to the restaurant.

I`m escalating this issue to the higher management that time, Mohammed for further actions to made to these staff as follows; Abdulrahman was so irresponsible for the order not made in a timely manner. The two female staff namely, Madonna & Wafa, who were mindless and insensitive to our needs. Their customer service attitude should be marked horrendous and subject for review and action to made.

I would to take this opportunity to have your eyes opened, treat anyone with respect regardless the nationality who is coming to your restaurant.

Given the chance, I would never recommend this restaurant at all. As a first time coming in and having incompetent staff served me, it`s really not worth the experience...

Excellent food!! We got some fried calamari and shrimp, grilled fish, grilled butterfly shrimp in butter sauce. All of it was delicious, no complaints.

Great service ! As it wasn't over crowded (and we went during weekend lunch time) and tables near us were empty, we felt we were getting personalized service by the waitress. And everyone seemed to be very friendly with a great work attitude.

The place is wonderfully designed. Very bright, open, with an aquarium of fish. They could get rid of the screen and replace it with an aquarium that can be seen easily and that would definitely up their decor and atmosphere and popularity with families and kids! Additionally, they do have a small kids play space that's easily seen from many tables, making it convenient to wait for your food or dine while your little ones play.

There was just one veryyy unprofessional moment we experienced...as the severs were bringing another customers food tray out, they took and ate a couple fries from it just before serving it!!! We were sooo baffled and shocked to see that behaviour. It did leave me wondering whether servers would eat/touch any of our food just before serving it to us. This is unprofessional and unhygienic. I hope they don't repeat this behaviour! This is the only reason I cannot give it 5 stars. Which is a shame as everything else was excellent.

If the manager reads this comment...I hope you will retrain and reiterate to your staff how very inappropriate it is to eat from a customers food before...

This shop is located at Tahlia street and because of that parking is a bit of a hassle and quite limited.  We tried a mix of grilled and fried seafood consisting of fish, prawns, calamaris and crab and a few others. You picked your kind of seafood you want and they will cook it to your liking. The staff did offer recommendations and suggestions on which cooking style suits best for the fish we handpicked. Other sides and drinks can be ordered from the menu. One major downside is the QR code menu, which was not working during our visit so we had to order by referring to the menu on Hungerstation, which was frustrating. Honestly, they should have a backup physical menu in place rather than asking patrons to navigate an app, which does not belong to the restaurant, and doesn't always load properly. We ended up googling the menu and checking photos uploaded by other diners. 1 star off for this. Another letdown was the presence of flies in the premises even though is not an open-air setup. That knocked another star off for us.

As for the food, they were decent but nothing really stood out. It was grilled perfectly however the marination wasn't anything special and pretty basic. Service was on the slower side, even for simple dishes like fried calamari fried items like the calamari. On the bright side, they have a supervised indoor play area where kids can play and keeping them entertained while waiting for the...