Abshar Restaurant (Croydon) — Restaurant in London

Who attended: 5 people. Three from Middle East, two of them being previous owners of the Middle Eastern restaurant, one 5 year old. Service: people wait around at the door. Waiting staff are all foreigners and not sure about menus and how the food is supposed to look or to be served. Not clear roles between staff. We had 4 people serving as at different points. When pointed something on the menu, the English waitress back fired ' I didn't write the menu' (Er...what do you say to that? 'Are you dumb or pretending to be?'). Who is the manager is not clear. The chap who came to deal with our complaint has not introduced his role. Instead started justifying himself giving excuses. He used phrases like 'The chef will not take the dish back', 'Don't laugh at me', 'This is what you are getting, I can't change this' - lack of peoples skills and experience, unprofessional approach to customer service to mention the least. The owner should either send him on are course to train how to respond and deal with costumer complaints or just get rid off him. Food: having Middle eastern background and experience in running a restaurant, we had some idea of what it should be like. The food was cold, tasteless and sparse. Our main complaint was the size of the sea bass served (see the picture). Now imagine that dish with no rice as it does not come with the rice, rice was an 'add on'. In the menu in states ' Grilled sea bass'. That means the whole sea bass with the head and for £11.99 you would expect at least double the size. The dish we were served was a fillet of a sea bass. The same chap tried to justify that the fillet is more expensive and better. If they served us a whole fish, it would have cost us more. What??? Shall I tell you the difference dear chap? Ever wondered why fillets are boneless? How do you take the bones out immaculately out of the raw fish? Well, the fish is placed in a special chemical liquid that melts the bones. The farmed sea bass can be acquired for £10 for 4 pieces. The sea one, not farmed, is at least £15 per fish. The restaurants buy whole sale frozen boxes for a fraction of the price. Not a brainer. So, that size fillet without rice and with three leaves (salad?) can't be £11.99 surely? Later the chap apologized and explained that they have changed the dishes and sizes, etc. Too late. The damage has been done. in addition, the order took about 40 mins to arrive. With a 5 year old sitting for 40 mins doing nothing - as nothing is provided for children like in other restaurants ( pens, colouring, etc)- frustrating. More, they cramped 6 chairs at the tables for 4. So sitting and space was an issue. My husband ended up sitting at the angle, at the corner...Not impressive. Also, we ordered 'Fresh Juice' from the menu assuming they are 'freshly squeezed'. It appeared to be only carrots that were freshly squeezed and apples, oranges and something else came from the cartons. At the end, she returned to inform that the machine for carrots was out of order. Then she forgot the apple juice for our child. And her chips. And the bread. And, the fact that I specified I couldn't have rice with dill and beans but I would prefer plain rice instead. At first she said the outright ' no', but after my husband rephrased it ' could you just put plain rice instead the dill one', she said 'ok'. When it finally arrived, it was dilled rice. I said I ordered plain rice. The waitress said 'that's plain'. Oh my goodness me, who are you kidding? I said, pointing to my husband's plate, 'that is plain. this one is with dill and beans. can you see the beans?' She took it away eventually and brought the plain rice. Small things but really make the whole experience hell. Bill: finally, I am the type to check the charge all the time. In this country the gratitude is optional. After this sort of service, you cannot simply be grateful. The restaurant has mischievously omitted 'service charge' line from the bill and added in total. They apologized after, but we paid the full bill- can't go down to their...

We had decided that we would take part in the Eat Out to Help Out scheme as it was beneficial to us, but also would support local businesses in a time of national need.

We were a party of four and had booked some days prior. On entering we were very aware that there was a distinct lack of social distancing and perhaps it could be argued that we should have left immediately, and with hindsight we all wished we had, however we were shown to our table which was a side table squashed between 3 others, there was so little gap between the tables that even the waiting staff had difficulty getting to and from tables.

When we were first seated we discussed between ourselves how close the tables were but at that time the table to our right, which was less than 2 foot away didn't have anyone sitting on it so we thought that perhaps it would be left vacant, unfortunately within about 10 minutes we found that that wasn't going to be the case. We immediately asked to speak to the manager who took ages to appear, infact we had to ask at least 3 times to speak with the manager before she appeared. When she finally appeared she said it wasn't her fault and that they were so busy they needed all the tables, she then went on to say it was the Governments fault anyway, we tried to discuss it with her for about 10 minutes but it was impossible to get her to either take responsibility or see the potential danger that she was putting the customers and her staff under. Eventually the couple on the table next to us said they would move and we asked that the table be left vacant while we were in the restaurant, within an hour they were trying to seat some people who had walked in off the street at the table we reminded them that it was supposed to be left free and they re-seated the people.

We also noted that between sitting the tables were cleared but we didn't see them wiped with anything let alone some sort of anti bacterial spray. Also, there were no cleaning products in the toilet to allow you to clean any area you might wish to.

The appalling service we received would make an excellent comedy sketch for TV, to be brief about it, they only brought us one starter, then our main dishes were brought to the table while we were eating our starters and although I am sure they will deny it and I have no proof we all felt that the mains we eventually received were the same ones and they had just been hanging round in the kitchen until we were ready, as a result we barely ate any of it. They still however had the front to add a 10% service charge!!

As tax payers it should be remembered that we are paying this 50% subsidy and if it were in my power I would absolutely refuse to pay this restaurant and any others found to be abusing the scheme, their staff and their customers in this way! Even though we are long standing customers of this eatery we will at least be voting with our feet and never visit this place...

The place: Amazing decor, and ambience! Intricate designs and mosaics on the walls, beautiful chandeliers! Background music and subtle lighting! Tables were quite close together but wooden chairs were big enough and comfortable too! We spent about 2.5 hours there and hardly notice the time go by!

Party size: 7 of us went, 5 adults and 2 kids! We were all made to feel very welcome and the restaurant staff were extremely accomodating!

Staff: Extremely polite and very helpful and friendly, gave us plenty of attention without being overly attentive! When we asked for extra plates and sauces etc, there was no hesitation and continuous service with a smile which is so nice to see, as it's rare these days!

The food: We ordered quite a bit from their menu, a sharing platter, and 3 main meals, a few starters, plenty of drinks and virgin cocktails, desserts and tea too! All the food was cooked extremely well, the chicken was very flavoursome as was the kebob and lamb! Plenty of rice and salad with each main, fairly generous portions, although I've seen larger in another place. The chicken/meat itself is extremely tender, and when I say tender I mean... It literally melts in your mouth! I've actually never tasted meat so tender, it was sooooo tender in fact, that it almost tasted like fake veggie meat! Which I found a tad strange lol (almost enough to change this to 4 🌟 s) I know I'm strange but I prefer my meat/chicken to be at least a little bit tougher than it was. But other than that... The presentation was superb and food tasted great!

Drinks: We mainly ordered soft drinks but also got some virgin mohitos which were superb, just the right amount, in a fairly large glass with the perfect blend of mint and lemon! Loved it! There were also any number of alcoholic drinks to chose from, should one be so inclined but we were not!

Dessert: I was surprised to see the selection of desserts was quite different to most places! Souffles and Sorbets inside frozen fruit, Berry tarts and lemon mousse in a glass etc! They even had a kids dessert with a plastic animal toy to take away! Fantastic flavours and finished the meal off nicely!

Tea: We ended with a pot of Persian tea which helped wash down the wonderful food! The tea was sweet and aromatic and came in a great hand painted tea pot atop a stand holding a candle, to keep it nice and warm! The accompanying miniature glasses only added to the whole experience!

Overall one of the best dining experiences I've had for a while, if you're out for authentic Persian cuisine, some great tasting food, just the right ambience and super friendly staff, then this has to be the place to go! You won't be...