Cafe Masala By Miah Bishop’s Stortford — Restaurant in East Hertfordshire

Went here last night with my wife and 2 friends. Firstly we had to wait over 45 minutes to be seated due to no space as there was a large party in there of well over 20 people. We were finally seated and dumped right by the front door which was cold and uncomfortable as we were also squeezed in with the large party.

The starters came relatively quick but the podi prawn and pakora chicken came cold. We brought this to the waiters attention and the only response we got was it’s due to being understaffed due to this big group who have turned up with more people than they booked for.

Anyway. The starters were half eaten and taken away. We then waited over 90 minutes for our mains to come out. Again, they blamed the big group for taking all of their staff up. Again, the mains were just Luke warm and quite bland.

We were still here when this large groups started to disperse and leave only a few people behind to settle their bill. This then ended in quite a rude altercation on the staff side of things from what we heard, they complained about service and were asking for the service charge be removed. The manager then started shouting at them demanding the service charge. This arguement went on for a while and ended up with the manager screaming at the guy trying to pay, basically telling them to Fxxx off and pay nothing then. The guys walked outside to get away from this altercation and what members of staff they did have ran out and confronted them getting in their faces threatening them to which one of the ladies in the group called the police who came and calmed the situation down.

Not one member of staff came to us to appologise for any of this and just dumped our bill on the table, this also included a service charge of 20% which is way too much to demand without question. We also had this removed but left a small tip to what we always do.

This may have been due to them not being able to cope with large groups but this doesn’t excuse the issues.

We will not be returning.

I have added this edit as the restaurant actually gives fake replies! We did not try to get any free food, we did not ask for any money off, we paid the full bill minus the service charge. The booking was not under my name and I didn’t mention any name in my original review either so there is no way the restaurant would even know who we were unless they actually pay attention to their customers and remember who they did what to.

To the restaurant manager, just one bit of advice, instead of lying in your responses and making up stories to make your issues sound like the customers are at fault, own it and just apologise, doesn’t take much to give customer service. Also, on this point, if you actually read my review properly, you will see that I put the main issue down to the large party you clearly couldn’t handle as an...

AVOID AT ALL COSTS! Food poisoning, rude and aggressive staff, scammers. Never experienced anything like this in my life!

EDIT: the unapologetically rude and obnoxious manager tried to say that we wanted to leave without paying, WHILE WE STOOD THERE WITH OUR CARDS IN HAND, READY TO PAY THE BILL WITHOUT THE SERVICE CHARGE. THANK GOD THE POLICE CAME AND WE FOUND OUT THAT EVEN OUR DEPOSIT WASN’T TAKEN OFF OF THE MAIN BILL

We booked tables for 25 people for a staff night out, PAID £100 DEPOSIT, 27 people showed up (those two extra people left straight after the starters due to childcare, which can be seen on restaurant’s cctv). The food was disgusting to say the least. Hair in a FEW starters, cold food, coke tasted like curry (no joke), had to ask to replace the drinks. Paneer cheese was tasteless, other dishes tasted like yesterday’s leftovers. The waiters asked us to SERVE OUR OWN FOOD, which we did, because they were understaffed. When the bill came (just over £1100), we asked POLITELY to remove £100 service charge which is optional, and considering we HAD TO SERVE OUR OWN FOOD, we weren’t comfortable paying that charge. We were more than happy to pay the rest of the bill, even though the food was atrocious and most of us left hungry. The manager of the restaurant got rude and aggressive, demanding we still pay the service charge, then he told us not to pay at all, to F off and never come back, the altercation can be seen on restaurant’s cctv. We stepped outside, shocked at the treatment, and three waiters came barraging at us, coming right into our face, demanding we pay. After this aggressive attack, we called the police. The police mediated, the restaurant removed the service charge and we found out that the deposit WHICH WE ALREADY PAID, was never removed from the original bill in the first place. WHAT A SCAM! Thanks to police we got our deposit and the service charge removed from the bill. Now we’re finding out that a few people from our group are throwing up after eating the food we were served. The police advised we take this matter to a small claims court, which we will be doing and we are reporting the place to the food standard agency. THE WORST EXPERIENCE I’VE EVER HAD IN A...

I am going to write a fair review here. . The food was great. Very good. We really enjoyed it. However, had a really bizarre experience which I am not quite over.. we ordered a chicken tikka dansak vindaloo hot, but was served a chicken tikka masala vindaloo hot which does not really work. We told the staff that it was incorrect and one of them basically as good as said no it wasn't, we ordered that and kept saying "just try just try". We argued it but was not really being heard. He then offered to replace the meal but would take 15 - 20 mins so this was declined as our friend did not want to eat alone and wait. We would have been nearly finished. He did not enjoy the curry and left most of it. One staff member tried to make a joke and say " oh couldn't handle the chillies " in which we responded, no, the curry was wrong, we don't like it. We were ignored. The bill then came and we decided that due to the good food we would just pay for the wrong curry and not cause a fuss. The bill included service charge. We changed our mind when the staff member tried to get us to round our bill up to a "round number" despite already adding service charge. This is when I snapped. The attitude about the wrong curry was so so poor. As a response to me saying actually no, service is included and you've served the wrong curry etc etc he became very rude and aggressive. Told us we were wrong, it was what we ordered. We then asked to remove the service due to the shocking attitude and aggression. He even began to argue this. Other staff just watched. He was not happy at all and aggressively shoved me the card machine and receipt. Such a shame..great food. I anticipate a rude response given the other responses I can see on the...