Monsoon Bengali Cuisine - Rustington — Restaurant in Arun

Torn here on what to rate this, because the food was extremely good, but the service was dire and the restaurant itself was so cold that we, and many other people, were sat eating with coats on.

Food - 5 dishes, all delicious. Cooked perfectly, tastes were spot on (it didn't all taste like one gravy tweaked for each dish), all steaming hot. Side dishes were also all lovely. Really can't fault the food at all. We didn't even have doggy bags as everything was eaten there and then. Genuinely great.

Service - Appalling. We felt like we were an inconvenience the whole time. The waiter didn't raise a smile at any point, ignored my mum twice (no idea if this was on purpose or accidental, but she wasn't exactly whispering to him), and took ages to take the order. He did the drinks order by memory and forgot one of them, then when I asked for it he repeated it back to me, and because he was so dour barely opened his mouth, which led to him bringing the wrong drink as I misheard him. He was visibly unimpressed when I said it was wrong. You don't have to fawn over customers, but at least don't make them feel like you don't want them there from the get go.

Temperature - it was properly cold. I went in in just a fleece, and had to get my coat to put over my knees. My husband, who doesn't really feel the cold, commented that he wished he'd bought his coat. The heating did appear to kick in about 40 minutes after we arrived (which incidentally was about 25 minutes before our food arrived as the waiter took so long to take our order), but even then there was a huge draught coming from the door as it appeared to not shut properly. It's obviously not their fault that it's bitter out at the moment, but they need to get the door sorted, or have their heating on full blast...

I have used this restaurant for take away and the food has always been lovely, it comes so highly recommended by friends to. The problem was there was no food! I understand that restaurants can get very busy, so when my friends and I decided to have our first catch up of the year we made sure we booked a table ( for 19:30 we all have children to get home to). We arrived at 19:20 and waited outside the restaurant until 20:10 with no communication as to how long we would be waiting. It was ok we could see they were busy and understood sometimes tables over run with time so this wasn’t to much of an issue. We sat down ordered our drinks and mains, we didn’t need starters. The drinks came along with some poppadoms. At 21:40 we still hadn’t even had our meals put on the table. We had our 19:30 table and still hadn’t eaten at 21:40. We decided as we had no communication from staff that we would rather just leave. We spoke to a man at the front desk and asked to speak to the manager who was “ to busy” to come and talk to us about our experience. We were asked to wait a few minutes longer and that our food was almost ready. Reluctantly we paid for drinks and left very disappointed not just in the whole service but that the manager was also so busy that they...

Placed an order via just eat at 7.30 on Saturday evening, the order was almost immediately confirmed for delivery around 8.25-8.45. 9.15 came and still no food, so a call made to the restaurant to be told the food was not ready yet, but they would try to ensure it would be with us within 15 minutes. 9.45 I call again to find out what's happening, to be told the order is still in the restaurant and is not yet out for delivery. 10pm our delivery arrives. I know Saturday deliveries can be hit and miss, but if you cannot cope with the level of orders then simply refuse the order request rather than confirming and taking my money! By the time it arrived we were pretty much ready to go to bed after a long stressful day so we were unable to enjoy it, but to be honest there was not much to enjoy. The rice was sticky and clumpy and one of the Currys was full of oil which had also completely covered the contents of the bag in oil, but still leaving a pool of oil in the container. I would advise against ordering on a busy night if you actually want to have a meal at...