Manga Restaurant — Restaurant in Mouille Point

Make no mistake, Quaglino's is gorgeous. I mean, really, REALLY pretty. Think Miami cool, Côte d'Azur beach chic, Upper West Side trendy and Camps Bay cool. And the views! Splendid..especially if you bags a table at the street-level window where you can, as we did, watch the sun go down and set the sky ablaze.

Brill.

Our Service Ambassador, Marvel, was one of the two highlights of the experience. Friendly, fast and fun and he recognised me from YEARS ago at Waterfront restos. Whatta guy! So after ordering bread, we perused the menus and waited for our drinks, which arrived forthwith.

However, in the interim, I had to ask 4 (4!) people the exact weight of the Sirloin steak (250g btw), and ended up having to go to the kitchen myself to get answers. Not good.

But no matter, decided on a kids Calamari (R65) to start and a Carbonara pasta for Winifred and aforementioned steak pour moi.

The Calamari was the second highlight...tender, juicy, piquant with a delightful little back-of-the-tongue chilli zing and scrumptious tartar sauce and stir-fry veggies (Sid's suggestion).

Delish. No, really. I mean it...simply phenom nom nom. Ah haha.

This is where things started to go south, I fear. When I returned to the table after taking pics of the Calamari, Winifred looked a bit piqued. She then told me she had been asked to tell me not to take pics of the food and "move it around on the plate", as the restaurant "didn't like it".

Say wha'?! You can imagine my response. Kofi Annan would've needed smelling salts. Mother Teresa would've needed Xanax. Hannibal Lecter would've needed extra gravy. But I digress again..

After clearing up that little misunderstanding by enforcing my rights to take whatever pics or videos of my own food as I see fit, I tucked into the starter and we awaited mains.

And waited. And waited. And waited.

And then...after profuse apologies from Marvel, the mains arrived. Now, I know it is déclassé to talk about food I didn't personally order, but I must mention Winifred's Carbonara pasta.

Ideally, this should be a rich, creamy, hearty pasta dish, with lashings of black pepper, OODLES of bacon bits and a mellifluous, buttery taste that satisfies the need for a substantial carb-fix.

What arrived was a very dry, clumpy, lukewarm conglomeration of minimal pasta, almost invisible bacon, zero pepper and bland aftertaste (R135!). Think SABC 1 on a plate.

My steak though was delish and very well done, as I requested, with quite the saltiest Café de Paris butter I have yet had, however. Think cheek-pursingly strong. I would like to think that this was a kitchen mishap, and not a purposeful ruining of my dish, but it was assuredly most unpleasant.

At this point, I was ever so slightly mortified that my hosting Winifred to Cape Town's foodie nirvana was in peril. But, to give her due credit, she was gracious and patient and kept telling me to "stop working and eat your bloody food". No, really. Gotta love her.

I then suggested we adjourn and asked for the bill. Which took ages. And ages. And ages. In an empty resto. On a Sunday night. Oy. But again, Marvel kept updating us and took really good care of us, so not too much of an issue.

Then the bill arrived. Totalling R135. For 2 people. For 3 dishes, tea, 2 cocktails and a couple of glasses of wine for Winifred.

Say wha'?!

Turns out Sidney had apparently given Marvel the bill with the Entertainer discount on (?!), instead of the actual bill (R356).

#speechless.

Proper bill subsequently presented and sorted out though, Marvel kept apologising for the experience. Honestly, that man is very good.

We said our goodbyes and I spirited Madame off to Fire and Ice Hotel for quite the bestest best Lindt/marshmallow/Nosh/peanut butter shakes EVER, to round off the evening.

And guess what?!

Turns out we had the time of...

Do not go here!!!! This was probably the worst place I have ever been to in my life! We went here for a friends birthday and arrived at 8pm. We were a group of about 15. The waitress took half our drinks orders and we had to constantly call her to order drinks. We ordered our food ( sushi) at around 830pm. By 10pm we were still waiting. We were starving and constantly asked where our food was. The restaurant was not full at all! Our sushi ( being just mine and another few guests) arrived and it was soooo tiny! The sashimi was half the size of normal sashimi pieces. The sushi was horrible!!! Our friends were still waiting for their sushi which had still not arrived! We called the manager who was extremely rude to us. It was my friends birthday and this whole experience spoiled our buzz because the birthday boy was constantly following up with the manager for our food orders. The manager was so dismissive and non accommodating to a point where we all decided to leave. Half the guests never received any food and on top of that the manager demanded we pay full price with no apology. We were trying to reason with him and he called security!!! He called security for patrons of his establishment that received terrible service and bad food. I was so shocked at this treatment. Not only was our evening ruined , we left hungry 🙁. I highly / strongly recommend you do not support this restaurant. If I could've give a negative...

Sadly I can't bring myself to rate any higher. Although the Sticky Pork Belly was absolutely, "mouth-wateringly" delicious, it took an hour for food to arrive and they weren't even busy. Restaurant hygiene is questionable too. We booked a table and when we arrived the table wasn't even wiped down. Full of what looked like crumbs. Ok sure a minor thing, but when the side plates were brought, mine still had food stuck to it which was totally off-putting. Service here could be seriously improved. When the drinks arrived, they only brought glasses for half the table. We had to chase up for the rest of the glasses.

In summary, the food was good, the location fantastic, but for the cost of the food, I expected so much more out of...