Taste Of Bengal — Restaurant in England

Full disclosure: before you make the assumption I am one of these people who notoriously write bad reviews, please look at my previous ones. It is not in my nature to do so, nor did I especially want to leave my trip to Penrith and have to write a review, however, I felt compelled to do so.

We arrived at Taste of Bengal with our two twins on a Wednesday around 6/6:30pm for what we felt would be a nice meal together going off the reviews.

We were first abruptly told they didn’t have high chairs and that we needed to keep our twins ‘off of the broken table in the corner’. Fine, we understood and sat down to look at the menu. By 10 minutes, we hadn’t even been acknowledged or offered drinks. (Please note there was two tables only). By 20 minutes, one of the servers came flying out the kitchen and waved his fingers at us shouting ‘2 minutes’. He then proceeded to go into the kitchen and take out dishes one at a time to the other table. An apparently clever way of making service go so slow, it would have been marvelled at by snails far and wide. There was another member of staff who seemed intent on keeping himself as busy as possible whilst at no point making eye contact with us. Then someone walked in for a take away and shock, they were greeted, prioritised and got their food before we had even sniffed a drink or been asked if we wanted one.

After around 20-25 minutes, our twins were crawling up the walls (understandably at this stage expecting at least a poppadum or a glass of water before peak starvation struck and we’d have to become screen time at dinner parents after promising ourselves we never would) so we decided to leave and call it a day and find somewhere else to go. As we stood up, both previously invisible and mute members of staff appeared and said ‘is everything ok?which quite frankly was ironic & no, things were not okay. I politely said that we were going due to lack of service and that our children were hungry and we got a very blunt ‘okay bye’ and the other member of staff apparently HAD seen our table and the invisibility shield had left with us!! He was over tidying up the cutlery we had been letting our kids play with to pass the time and intermittently stab ourselves in the eyes out of sheer frustration. Our table had existed?! Who knew.

They saw us with 2 kids and made the assumption they’d be badly behaved/messy when in actual fact we as parents are very accountable, have very well behaved children and wouldn’t have been a nuisance at all. They simply just didn’t want to serve us. We ended up going to La Casita(HIGHLY RECOMMEND 100/10!) who were accommodating, welcoming and I imagine serving food that beats this place by a country mile.

Also side note, PETA need to walk in this place and see their fish tank. It’s got animal abuse written all over it. I’ve seen clearer liquid in a...

Went to this restaurant with some friends for a birthday. We got seated and were handed some menus and glasses to drink our own beers we had brought. We tried several times over the course of the next 45 minutes to get one of the two waiters attention who were more interested in taking takeaway order after takeaway order. After several attempts to get their attention I had to go up to the bar to ask them to take our order. They instead continued to take more take away orders, stock up cola cans and avoid any form of eye contact where possible and ducking and diving between the kitchen and the telephone. After a second time of going upto the bar to ask to put an order in they again acknowledged and 5 minutes later came to take our orders.

After half an hour one of the waiters brought some luke warm onion bahjis and a saucer of tandoori meat that was clap cold and likely spent a long time under a heat lamp.

Another half an hour passed and still no food brining us upto 2 hours since we arrived with no food. Thank God we had brought our beers...

We noticed that several over tables of people were also looking frustrated without food and another couple were left standing to pay a bill and leave for a good 20 minutes.

We decided to leave in fear our dinner would never arrive but were left hungry and severely disappointed.

The food never arrived and what small sample of food we tasted (on the house for the delay) was cold and questionable. The restaurant was also very run down. At one point a poor lady nearly fell through an unsecured fake feature wall on entry almost toppling it onto our table. There was also a table next to us which said 'do not use' due to a hole in the floor. A party of 7 soon arrived and the 'do not use' sign was promptly flung behind the world's gammiest fish tank where two solitary fish floated around looking more depressed than we did.

There was also black mould in the corner of the room which didn't fill us with confidence making the corner of the room with the sagging floor and the party of 7 look even more dangerous.

I cannot believe how many 5 star reviews this restaurant has had but on searching hard it appears some people have had almost identical experiences to me and my friends.

We left the restaurant and instead headed to morrisons to get some oven pizzas which unbelievably was less grim than the alternative of waiting for an eternity in the bengal brasserie for a meal that would probably never arrive. Think we likely dodged a bullet here by leaving and pretty sure at least another table of guests followed suit for the same reason.

Birthday night ruined and possibly the worst restaurant ive ever been to. I think this is the first time in my life I have walked out of a restaurant with such...

A soft warning if you’re thinking of eating here:

Firstly, the front-of-house staff were polite and attentive, so this is no reflection on them. This review is purely about the value, food and poorly stomachs.

The prices are high, and the portions are small. The prawns and salmon were extremely poor—overpoweringly fishy, with a smell that suggested they’d been frozen and refrozen.

The curries, though rich in colour, were flat in flavour. Blindfolded, you’d struggle to tell them apart.

The chef’s “special” (£17.95) was shallow, small, and lacking in taste. The onion bhajis were flat, bendy, and tasted packaged—likely made in bulk and frozen. Across the dishes we ordered, not a single one stood out. Instead, everything was greasy, padded out with pointless salad, and ultimately very little food for the price.

To make matters worse, both myself and my partner were unwell the following day, and two days later we still feel the effects.

The bill for a meal and two drinks came to £95. It is an absolute disgrace to charge that amount for such poor-quality food.

When Wetherspoons, just across the road, serves curries at £7 that offer far more flavour and better value, you know there’s a serious problem. Of course, no one expects this restaurant to compete on price—but to be beaten so soundly on quality is embarrassing.

Is this place simply a tourist trap? Did we catch them on a bad night? I can’t say for sure. But what I can say is this: please avoid it. Because two days later, you’ll still be paying the price—long after you’ve paid the...