Lotus Lounge — Restaurant in Amber Valley

We went to the Lotus Lounge on a recommendation from a friend so expectations were high. Sadly, for us ‘slightly below average ‘ is about as much as we can appraise this place.. right from the get-go with booking a table.

Emails sent, text messages sent, voicemails left.. you can only book a table if you’re lucky enough to speak on the phone.. and that’s not so easy to achieve.

So, our table.. cramped in right in front of the bar.. ok, it’s busy but if there was ever an opportunity to make diners feel that they’re not part of it, this was it.. added to the (albeit attentive) mature (not old) waitress was so surly that I wouldn’t have needed any ice in my Pepsi Max for eternity.. it was like being served by Ailsa from Frozen on a bad hormone day.. needless to say we didn’t feel so welcome.

All you can eat buffet where you order dishes off the menu, as much as you like but restricted to only 4 dishes at any one time between 4 of you… that were portions big enough to feed a group of Liliputions on a diet. I’m not joking, I wish I’d taken a picture.. we ordered the Aromatic Lamb and it looked like the centre of the plate had been garnished with a burnt centipede.. it’s not all you can eat, it’s ’as little as we can get away with feeding you’.. and the chicken and sweetcorn soup was really dreadful.. in fairness you would take one look at me to know that I am not fussy about food (!), I’m really not but this soup had no stock.. it was glutenised water with mashed sweetcorn, egg and chicken bits in.. I promise you, it was bad. However, the taste of the hot and sour soup was different league.. much for the better.

Don’t get me wrong, generally the food was nice and it’s clearly a popular place but we won’t be returning, there are too many better...

Used to absolutely love this place until my visit today!

Food is good for an all you can eat, service is adequete to slow, and normally the staff are friendly and attentive. Not tonight however.

We arrived five minutes before our meal, and because it was raining outside we asked to be seated early before the last member of our party arrived. We got to the table and sat down, leaving one spare seat that was the size of two place setting rather than one. (I feel i should add at this point that i am a big man, over 6ft, overweight, you get the idea.) The waiter came over and asked if i wanted to move across to the bigger seat, i said i was fine thank you (It made more sense to leave the seat closest to the door open for the person who hadnt arrived yet), yet he stood their and insisted, and i quote, "No, you Large Boy, move to bigger seat" and would not move or stop making a scene until i moved across.

I'm under no illusions about my size, but i do not need service staff to make a scene about it, it's my choice if i want to sit next to my friends and be cramped.

TL;DR - Food good, service poor, waiter called me fat and made me move seats away...

So why only 3 stars? the restaurant is very nice with receptive staff and for those eating without dietary requirements very good. However if you are Gluten intolerant or Celiac then please avoid. We were assured when making our booking that the restaurant could accommodate my wife's Gluten free requirements, nothing could be further from the truth - when asking for what she could order from the menu she was told Crispy Seaweed and Sweet & Sour Chicken and Boiled Rice/ This was an Eat as Much as You Like evening and about 95% of the menu was 'out of bounds' to her. We know and appreciate the difficulty of catering to all diets but these guys literally had little to no knowledge what so ever, saying words like "I think it's OK..." to which naturally anyone who is Celiac would have absolutely no confidence in at all.

Please note this is just our view and I will reiterate - the staff, the food and the restaurant were all very good and 3 of our number had...