Lola Taberna Española — Restaurant in Dubai

Can we all agree that quality and taste of food at a proper dine-in establishment is important, but customer service is even more important??? Customer service is what sets you apart from your competitors. And Dubai boasts A TON of food options.

I bookmarked Lola last year and finally got to try it out because we were in the area. It wasn’t for lunch or dinner, just a late afternoon snack. My husband and I ordered the 2 starters + 1 main + 1 dessert business lunch and 1 more main from their regular menu. Our server repeated our entire order back to us. We waited for the appetizers to come; we were pleased with our service bread and charming sides of olives and garlic spread. The tapas arrived (spinach croquettes and pan con tomate with Serrano ham) AND I WAS BEYOND HAPPY. Delicious. Delicious. Delicious.

BUT THEN. We finished our appetizers. Our plates were cleared. 20 minutes passed. No sign of our server. The entire restaurant had only 2-3 other tables. Okay. Where are our mains?

Finally our server appeared with a plate in her hand — our paella. But not served in a cask iron skillet, not even the small 6-inch cask iron skillet which is what I like to use to make paella at home. It was just paella scooped onto a plate, I was AGHAST at the serving size and the serving STYLE! It would definitely leave a person hungry. The meat was SO DRY as well. The server never mentioned once how little would come. Or how it would be served. And we waited 20 minutes after we already cleared our appetizers. A server’s job is to analyze the customer in an unnoticeable way and cue to the kitchen to make the mains so that it can be served just before the starters are done. Or at least ask your table if they want everything to come together.

What’s worst, we finished the paella and our grilled sausages never came. When questioned about it, she was confused EVEN THOUGH she repeated the order back to us because we were unsure how to pronounce the Spanish word. She then pretended she remembered and went to put in our order AGAIN to the kitchen meaning we would have to wait another 20 minutes for it. By then we were already needing to leave. We had spent a total of almost 1.5 hours there and only had appetizers and sparkling water served to us??? Ludicrous. I couldn’t believe it. She didn’t even have the audacity to apologize. We ended up taking our desserts (churros) packed for take away, and asked them to cancel the sausage.

The best thing they could have done to redeem themselves was offer the sausage (which had apparently just finished cooking) by the time we were ready to pay the bill and leave ON THE HOUSE as an apology for their servers mistake. But no one said anything. We paid. We left. No goodbyes. No sorry’s.

Horrible customer service. It’s a shame because the food was tasty. Won’t be back. Be careful where you choose to spend your money!!!

P.S. I didn’t take anymore pictures after appetizers because I was too much in a state...

Deceptively fun Friday brunch experience at Lolas in the Wyndham. A sit-down, family friendly brunch that has a few surprises chucked in with some wine chugging competitions and a dancer/performer who I’m pretty sure had at least 12 redbulls before her show. Manager Bernardo and the waiters who were covering front of house were super accommodating and helped out when I showed up with no reservations and even offered a la carte which would have been a tough task to manage.

Food was quite good, the fish carpaccio/ceviche was delicious, the salsa for pan con tomate was super flavourful and the chicken croquettas tried their best to live up to the reputation of their jamon counterpart.

Not enough chicken/seafood in the paellas and the fried donuts should have been warmer.

Yugal my waiter was awesome, very attentive and for someone who’s only been in the job for a month is learning Spanish quite well. Fernanda as a hostess also went out of her way to take drink orders and very kindly deliver second helpings. Jessie was another super smiley, super polite waitress.

As a service, it was pretty awesome. If I had to comment, it would be the timing/spaces between the dishes brought out but understandable given how busy it was and the fact different tables sat down at different times.

Go for a fun, balanced Friday brunch. I hope and presume I’d be able to give the food a full rating on another day from a la carte judging...

This is one of the restaurants here in Dubai that offers an experience apart from serving good food and excellent drinks!

From photos I uploaded, you’d see how a lot of things were happening in that one meaningful “Valentine dinner” event.

Let me recount them below:

They serve you with complete smiles and welcome! They even have 1-stem rose for each of us (oh yes, coz it’s Valentines) and they brief you with what they’ll serve from food to drinks.

Foods keep on coming and they’re very attentive to their guest. They will replace an empty glass right away without you even asking for refill and they’ll make sure your table is filled with food you prefer having.

Their dishes were all palate serving and their drinks cam bring out the tipsy in you but at the right quantity.

FLAMENCO! Here’s when the hype goes up and everyone for sure are entertained! They have great performers who also make it a point to include the crowd as there were some Flamenco tutorial at the far-end of the performance.

The sangria chugging event where you get to try getting your full with the drink.

A special shoutout to Malith, Abdul, and Gil who made the experience worthwhile by their attentiveness and up top accommodation.

It was indeed an experience and I’ll definitely come back to more of what they may offer soon and will surely recommend them...