Mandarin Buffet (Restaurant) — Restaurant in England

Left in tears!

Arrived at the restaurant at 4pm today with my husband. Hadn't booked, but as it was 4pm on a Sunday, we took a chance.

The man allocating tables inside the main entrance (the manager, I think), gave us a table, and the waitress took us to our seats. However, our table was so incredibly close to the people sitting next to us, I felt suddenly very uncomfortable, and asked if we could be moved. (This restaurant is enormous. It's 4pm on Sunday, and there are ample empty tables).

The manager/table allocator, became so instantly furious at my request, he literally shouted at me. He was marching me around the place, with flailing arms, pointing and yelling at me about how "all the tables are close together! Because we need to survive you know!". I tried to explain that was OK, but that I would just prefer to sit next to an unoccupied table, if possible, but he wasn't listening and just continued to twist up his face, and spit at me further.

I think I was so stunned (as a simple request to move tables seemed very reasonable to me, especially given how many empty tables were available), that I went and sat back down in my chair to process what had just happened.

This emphatically rude and unprofessional gentleman then proceeded, in a very animated fashion, to point and complain loudly about me to the waitress standing next to him. He then engaged another member of staff in the same conversation, loudly, shouting down the walkway to one another next to where we were still sitting.

The two tables of people next to us, were understandably staring right at us, having had their meals so rudely interrupted, and the entire ordeal was completely humiliating and honestly, quite traumatic. Especially for a socially anxious person, who has a been working hard to overcome a significant phobia of eating in front of others, and has finally been spontaneous and plucked up the courage to attend what is described in Google reviews as a "good restaurant", with "polite, friendly and accommodating staff".

Honestly, all he needed to say was "I'm sorry madam, all of our tables are reserved and will be full before you finish your meal". Or, "as you didn't book, I'm afraid this is all we can offer". Or any of the other vast number of possible, proportionate responses available.

This behaviour was totally uncalled for, reactive, egotistical and offensive, and I am utterly appalled to think that any service would feel justified in treating their customers this way. I'm not surprised they "need to survive"!

If you enjoy being spoken to disrespectfully, being publically dressed down and humiliated, and leaving a place hungry and in tears before you've even so much as ordered a drink, then this is the place for you. Alternatively, you can spend your money at Karen's.

Deeply...

Without a booking they asks you to stay outside the doors in the 4' cold, although they have an waiting area (in our case, we had a 2 and a 10 years old which really wanted to eat there, otherwise wouldn't have waited). However, the website is not up to date and at the provided phone numbers no one answers for hours.

The 2 years old pays £4 for the entry and a 10 years old (only for chips with ketchup 🎃!!) pays FULL PRICE!! which is £15.99 weekly or £17.99 during weekends (Friday-Sunday).

Been here in several times and always disappointed by the service (however, the lady who took our drinks order last night was really nice). The man at the door and the managers (or whoever those men- walking around with their earphones on- are) are really cold and unwelcoming!! Same as the room (no pictures on the walls to make it more cosy and the temperature inside I think was below 20 degrees as most of the guests would wear jackets on).

Plenty of tasty food to choose from (not all Chinese related food- as they do British sausages/hash browns etc) and lots of cakes, sweets, gummy bears, jelly's, fruits (not all fresh cut, but more from cans/syrop). NO chocolate fountain anymore NO fresh made pancake provider anymore The staff at the seafood bar looked as begginers as they seemed uncomfortable when asked to cook fresh seafood.

In conclusion, if you are willing to pay (as a mum of 2) a £48 bill for only 2 non-alcoholic drinks🍹🍹 and some sweet&sour chicken/vegetable samosa (those were the only ones I could choose from all the "Chinese" food)/ the kids fries 🍟 (with ketchup), gummy bears…. then, feel free to visit.

Definitely recommend for the hungry persons, couples or families with no children.

NO recommended for families with children! as there's nothing for them to choose from (besides the sweets - obviously!, which they will try to replace with the supposed launch/dinner) and then they will just spend their time embarrassing you by playing around (when other people are running around trying to fill their plates with...

I booked the table in January 2024 for the 14th of February 2024 for 17,00pm. The website stated that the cost per person would be £20.00. However, we were left standing in the cold and had to queue for 20 minutes, Why queue when you have booked. We were shown to our table and was told that a member of staff will come and take our drinks order which took her 5 minutes, which wasn’t a problem, but resulted in a problem towards the end. A waitress came to our table as we were eating and told us that she had been informed that our time limit was ready to expire. I told her that we entered the premises at 17.20 waited for another member of staff to take our drinks order and to provide us with our drinks, so I guess this might have taken 10 minutes in total we lost 30 minutes. Please take note we also had to queue at the buffet. We had visited the Mandarin on previous occasions and the buffet which was once amazing with so much to choose from was slowly deteriorating. A lot of the Chinese dishes have been replaced for 'English' food (chips, nuggets, onion rings, Yorkshire puddings, sausage rolls and so much more fried cheap frozen foods, The desserts have also lessened. We also found that some of the dishes wasn't prepared very well, the mussels were dry the egg fried rice was plain boiled rice with bits of dried yolk thrown in and the sushi bar was empty. Basically, the Mandarin restaurant is eat quickly pay and get the hell out of here, your clientele is no longer needed. And to our surprise without any update to my email they had increased the price to £21.99 and they had the audacity to ask me if I would like to give them a tip.

PS SPARKLING WATER...