Meeting Point-Tanzanian East African Cuisine — Restaurant in City Centre

Worst dining experience of the year. I always seek out restaurants that serve authentic food, and The Meeting Place seemed like a great place to have genuine Tanzanian cuisine.

Everything started well enough, our waitress brought our drinks and our food was ordered within 5 minutes. The restaurant was mostly empty, just two other occupied tables.

Then the wait began. 20 minutes, 30 minutes, 40 minutes, sitting patiently, I thought maybe they were short staffed, but later saw 5 staff, two of whom were waitresses. At 40 minutes I asked how much longer the wait would be and let her know we were headed to the airport. She said our food was just coming out. 50 minutes. I gently pushed again, perhaps with a bit of frustration about the wait to let her know I was unhappy and running out of time. My hot tea was now cold, so I let her know and asked for another one.

At 60 minutes, my food came out (thanks to Maps, I looked up my arrival time). I had ordered their nicest steak and asked for it rare. It was well done, hard as a hockey puck, had large chunks of fat and bone, and the butter knife they gave me didn't stand a chance.

65 minutes and my daughter still didn't have her food. Decided to raise my voice in frustration and ask them to bring out her meal. They did 2 minutes later.

I asked for the bill so we could take care of it while eating. I was hoping I wouldn't be charged for the 2nd tea, no such luck. Full charge for everything, no concession or trying to make things right. Would have sent the steak back had we more time, but we had to get to the airport and had none left.

Icing on the cake, 6 hours later I developed symptoms of food poisoning. Brutal stomach pains, not so much fun on a 12 hour red-eye!

I almost never leave bad reviews, but this was the worst dining experience I can remember. Any restaurant can have a bad day, but they should prioritize ensuring customers leave happy!...

For tourists:

I usually try not to give bad reviews to a restaurant, but I do not want another tourist to take a bad or rather mediocre experience from such a beautiful country.

As soon as I arrive there was an angry couple that was just leaving because they had been waiting for there food for more than 45 min and never arrive.

I was very hungry but decided to stay, (maybe it was just a momentarily problem in the kitchen, rather odd since the restaurant was empty).

After waiting for about 50 min my beef stew arrived, and what really passed me off was the portion size, it was literally served on a small cup and had 3 pieces of beef.

I didn't want to be unpolite, so I just ordered the bill and went to Gatsby palace.

It is a Shame :( I really wanted to have a better experience with...

Went there again yesterday and it was such an amazing experience. The food is delicious with great portions. I had the vegetarian curry and I've had curries before but this one was extra juicy and different from the Indian style curries I'm used to, in a good (great) way. The cherry on top was the friendly staff; I went there alone but Rita, one of the founders, kept me company the whole time. I spent three hours at the place because we ended up having conversations as if we were old friends catching up. If you want to feel that special Ubuntu vibe that you cannot describe but only feel, I recommend that...