Maisha — Restaurant in Great Britain

Looked online, checked the menu. Had 3.9 on Google at the time which is low compared to others nearby but prices on the website menu seemed low enough to justify that. When I sat down the menu prices were a good 30% higher. If I'd known that I'd have gone to a better rated one.

I ordered a beer and the waiter offered me some poppadoms while I waited for my order. I then placed my food order which was a biriyani with rayita (wee pot of yogurt).

Before I get onto the food let me tell you my main quarrel. The £33.40 bill. I can afford good food, it's not the money, but this was a total scam.

Turns out those 2 wafer thin poppadoms which I didn't even really want were on the bill at £6.55 & infact not complimentary as had been inferred - I obviously should have questioned this.

The biriyani was sitting on chopped up iceberg lettuce (?!) and didn't have much flavour - I don't think the chicken had been marinated or slow cooked in a biriyani pot as it was white inside & dry other than a mild outer coating of what it was sitting in. I lived in the middle east for many years & this would not pass for a biriyani there even at the most budget place.

Mediocre food is fine if the price matches. I didn't want a fancy meal tonight. But ended up paying a fancy price for very average food & felt scammed due to a) online menu pricing being way off and b) the £6.55 poppadoms that were cheekily slipped in...

Having had two decent takeaway meals from this establishment, we thought we'd try to dine in. Never again. What an utter waste of hard-earned money. I know many restaurants make money on 'extras', but charging in excess of £7 for four poppadoms is ridiculous... especially when the staff member repeated my order for 'one each' for two of us. I sent them back as the poppadoms were spectacularly stale. The same poppadoms came back, having clearly been recycled. The meal was average at best. The chicken tikka had seen better days... I'm guessing the service had too. Well below average. And for goodness sake, restaurants should not be handing customers plastic containers and paper bags to take their leftovers home in. That is the restaurant's job. For that alone I wouldn't go back. Disappointing, as we had high hopes. Maisha appears to have joined a number of eateries in St Andrews that believe it's okay to charge high-end prices without the service to back this up. In complete contrast, we had a wonderful meal at The Tavern in Strathkinness, including a bottle of wine (we had no alcohol at Maisha) for considerably less. I would seriously recommend anyone to avoid Maisha... or stick with the takeaway. For us, we'll wait until we're next in Edinburgh, Birmingham or, most...

It was Open week however it was a VERY disappointing experience. We had a booking at 10pm. We arrived on time and they asked us to wait 10 mins. We ordered promptly but the food arrived after 11.45 pm. Over 90 minutes after sitting down. Other tables were complaining. I ordered a shandy. The lemonade used was flat. I have a nut allergy. None of their dishes say whether they contain nuts or not. There is no allergen card. The attitude towards a nut allergy was as poor as I’ve seen. I asked if a particular dish had nuts in, the waiter replied yes, I asked which ones on the menu didn’t have nuts in. He said all the others are ok. I pointed to a second dish, he said that has nuts in. It happened a 3rd time as well. He had no idea of the implications. When my curry was served the waiters tie was in the curry. I politely suggested he might want to get a tie clip. When one of our party complained about our experience after we had eaten he was spoken to like he was in the wrong. Awful. We also had extra dishes brought out which we didn’t order and were charged for. We also asked for 6 poppadum’s and 8 or 9 were brought out. No doubt we paid for those too. I wouldn’t recommend...