Maray Bold Street — Restaurant in Liverpool

Went today to Maray on Bold Street. My seabass was obviously bad/off, tasted very fishy which of course seabass shouldn’t. When I told the waitress she apologised and took it away, said she tried it and that this was how the dish was supposed to taste and therefore I couldn’t get a refund -(if the dish was supposed to taste like that then I’d give a 1 star review anyway - absolutely disgusting). Unfortunately one of my failings is not being very confrontational and I didn’t argue with her as I should have. Anyway clearly the fish was off and I still had to pay for the seabass that 20 minutes later I was throwing up into a bush.

Review disregarding that: The male server was very cold to us and it felt like he didn’t want us there at all. Usually I would forgive this as he may have been having a bad day but from the rest of our experience I just felt the service was pretty shocking in general. Took 10/15 minutes to ask for drinks orders - not ages but should be asked before that really - wasn’t busy - maybe 4/5 tables. Drinks however were very tasty - I had the house lemonade - with saffron and had a honey and slightly spiced taste, my girlfriend had the pomegranate drink which was delicious - everything you want from a fruity lemonade - sharp, refreshing, tasty as. The rest of the food was up and down. I had the goats cheese to start which was good (order flatbread to go with all your starters - I’d like dishes to be holistic so that you didnt have to order things to go with them but whatever its only a quid - and very nice, maybe the best food I tried on the menu) my girlfriend had the humus which was quite tasty but over-seasoned and not knock-out - I love knock-out humus. Falafels were good but again over-seasoned. The red spiced sauce drizzled on top was far too strong if you tasted it - just created that “white-noise” in your mouth when your tongue is in complete sensory overload. Couldn’t tell you what was in it for the life of me. My girlfriend had the lentil and spiced rice which was a bit weird for my taste didnt quite hit any sort of mark - quite a muddy and confused palate. The seabass - aside from being brought a bad fish - the roasted tomatoes and peppers it was brought on were overdone, over-reduced and again over-seasoned - flavours far too heavy and dark for seabass to be served with - would’ve totally overpowered a good seabass fillet.

Decor and vibe produced by the furnishings is very pleasant.

Without the food poisoning and the appalling way it was handled this restaurant would still struggle to get three stars from me, though I admit I may be a tough critic in general - but lets face it people hand out 5 stars like water in online reviews. Be careful getting water here they charge 2.50 for their filtered water - I asked specifically for tap water and didn’t get charged (though it may be that the waitress thought I’d fume if I got charged for water too). But yeah if you ask for “water” or a bottle of water they dmight charge you for that. I’d recommend Salt House Tapas for a tapas place just 5/10 minutes away, or most other restaurants if you aren’t specifically...

I went there for a small bite to eat after a film. After requesting to sit outside, I moved back in as the seating arrangements were quite cramped and I felt cold.

After being seated at the bar, the bartender (whose drink was a highlight) was the only person that spoke to me for a while. The waiting staff explained briefly the concept but that explanation wasn’t great and resulted in my meal being weirdly disjointed. I ordered a small bowl of olives that, themselves, were good - the marinade and sauce was were too salty and that overwhelmed the taste of the olives eventually. The ‘warm pitta’ was also cut weirdly and didn’t really seem easy to eat. it was a bowl of olives and a plate of a single warmed tortilla that was perforated into strips. Those together came to a cost of about £6.50.

I also ordered the sea bass or sea bream which was £9.50 and pretty unsubstantial. The fish, vegetables and pea purée were all equally under seasoned and what little seasoning they did have was sprinkled onto oil.

I ordered a dessert which was a chocolate and sesame tart. This was around about £7-£8. This was sprinklings of sesame seeds on top of a dense layer of room temperature chocolate ganache with a blend of frozen raspberries and mushed apricots. There was no pastry for this tart and nothing offered by way of cream or custard to supplement the rich chocolate. I couldn’t finish this.

When it came to paying the bill and leaving, this was where I found the most issues. Restaurants and businesses need to stop adding on a charity donation to their customers’ bills - this is a known practice of tax avoidance which means it isn’t illegal but is entirely unethical, customers should be made aware that the donation is made by the company donating that revenue to help reduce the tax that they pay on profits.

Then, like all big city restaurants, they added an unspecified percentage of a service charge. The company behind this is also clever in that the card machines are handed to customers and have to have the customer request to remove both the charity and “suggested tip”.

There are no figures on how this is calculated but it looked to be around about 12%. The wait between getting the card machine and someone actually attending to me because I had things I wanted to remove rather than simply just pay was long, maybe about 5 minutes which, if you’re sitting alone at a bar in a loud and dark restaurant feels like an eternity.

Overall, I don’t think the food quality was good, I think the atmosphere and level of service were actively bad, and I thought the level of attentiveness was probably the worst I’d seen in a...

I've given 3/5 as it was average and 3/5 is average in my eyes.

We ordered rump steak (wonderful and I normally hate steak), fattoush (not very nice. Very bland and missing items that were on its description), hummus and flatbread (average. I personally said that I had some supermarket ones that were just as good), sprouts (nice but not excellent. Some bites tasted a little burnt/bitter but others were wonderful), lamb kofta (again, nice but not excellent. Can't complain though) and then bread and butter pudding for dessert (5/5, very decadent. Large portion, definitely could share. Was quite rich and as beautiful as the Chantilly cream was, I almost felt like plain vanilla ice cream or plain double cream would be better to balance out the heavy main dish).

So it felt like there were too many average dishes for me to give 4/5. Service was fine. 9 dishes, one soft drink, one beer was £68 iirc. This doesn't include an optional tip of 10%. I felt slightly overcharged but only slightly. There was a large variety of dishes on the menu and I wouldn't rule out taking my mum as she loves middle eastern food. And I can't deny I'm not still thinking about the steak... I do still want to try the disco cauliflower which I had heard about but because I'm a fool didn't realise it was the same place and missed it...