Formosa Izakaya — Restaurant in Birmingham

Dreadful dining experience.

Went there for lunch and after walking in, my wife and I basically stood there for 3-5 mins without anyone greeting us or leading us to seats. A big sized staff was literally next to us sorting out his stack of menus and tying his shoes but he did nothing even though he saw us.

After a while we were seated and we tried to order food for 10-12 mins but no one took our order even though we called them and tried to let them know we need to make orders. 20 mins passed since we walked in and we couldn't even order our food so we decided to leave in the end. Half my lunch was gone.

Later that evening, we decided to give it another go so we went there for dinner after work. Oh boy, I wished I knew better......

Only 5 tables were occupied, including us, so 60% of the restaurant was empty. And yes, you could only order food 15 mins after you were seated. Seems like it's a special thing there.

When we finally made our order we were told a lot of drinks were not available. i.e. no bubble for bubble tea, no taro for taro mill tea, no foam for creamy foam tea and surprisingly even some of the beers, the ones I wanted, were out. Okay, still acceptable.

To be honest, the food was actually tasty, though it's a quite a bit on the oily side of the scale.

When we were paying for the bill and received the change the lady who served us just stood there and were actually staring at us to see if we left any tips...... which we did but not a lot.

One last thing I noticed throughout the night was, most Asian customers needed to wait for a while to be served or seated, but when a group of 4 white customers walked in, they got immediate service.

Later that night, I don't know if it's the food being a bit too oily or what, my wife had a stomach ache needed to stayed in the washroom for quite a while.

Overall, if anyone has plenty of time to kill and doesn't mind oily food or bad services altogether, the taste of the food is actually...

Disappointing visit :(

I've come here a handful of times in the past year, and each time it's been wonderful. This time I came in for a quick meal with my sister, as I had less than an hour before I needed to leave for work. We arrived at 4:45pm and upon entering, were asked if we could finish by 7pm, almost as if they were already rushing us out...

Once sat, we each ordered a bowl of noodles and a starter to share. 15 minutes later, my noodles came before the starter, and it took a further 3 minutes for the starter to come. We enjoyed sharing the starter, and then my noodles started to get cold, so my sister urged me to eat, even though her food hadn't arrived yet. The portion was smaller than I've had previous times, so I easily finished in 15 minutes, and still no sign of my sister's food.

At this point it had been more than 35 minutes since we ordered, so we asked someone about our food and she replied "I'll check your order". She never came back to give us an update and another 10 minutes had past. The food finally came but at this point I already had to leave, so I left my sister to dine alone.

I paid for the meal and while having interacted with staff multiple times, not once did anyone apologise for forgetting our food or for it coming late. I work in the food business myself, so I'm absolutely appalled by the customer service I received today. With the combination of this and the quality of food having dropped, I doubt I will be...

I'm still in this fantastic restaurant as I write this because I have never been catered for like this. I have Coeliac Disease and as such, Asian cuisine in general is hit or miss with regards to availability.

We came here for a birthday and the wonderful waitress told me that nothing was strictly gluten free and couldn't accommodate from the menu. But she had asked the chef if I would like something completely off of the menu. Again, this just doesn't happen, and we eat out a lot! I asked for something rice based with meat, trying to be as simple as possible.

The waitress again was so diligent and caring about what I could and couldn't eat and spent a while going back and forth between the kitchen, she is fantastic!

The chef then made me (and I apologise for not taking a picture, but I wuffed it down quick!) An incredible rice and fried chicken bowl with a plethora of onion, chilli and other ingredients and it was absolutely delicious!

The fact that they didn't do the bare minimum is one thing, but to make me a complicated dish, requiring plenty of separate prep time with separate ingredients has completely humbled me.

I did come during lunch time, so I can't imagine they could do this during dinner time, but they have got me for life now! Thank you so much to the lovely staff of Formosa Izakaya! You made me feel normal and...