My Neighbours the Dumplings - Clapton — Restaurant in London

I really really wanted to love this place, but the service let me down. I live in the area and pass by all the time and it always seems to be buzzing with people. Timeout gave it a decent review so I decided to check it out.

My friend and I arrived at 6:45pm and we informed the waiter that we would be sitting outside. No one came to ask us for our order. We came inside and spoke to another waiter and he tells us that they do not serve food outside. So we sit inside the restaurant. We placed our order and received everything except for two portions of the scallops with noodles. We kindly waited for our scallops with noodles and at this point we had already finished most of our meal. We inform the waitress that we didn't want it anymore because we've been waiting a long time. She comes back and says sorry they couldn't understand my writing so they didn't make it. We said that is fine and place our dessert order.

At this point my friend and I notice that people are sitting outside eating. a meal and I approach the waiter who told us they do not serve food outside. He said, "Oh yeah...when it is busy we let people eat outside." I proceeded to tell him this is a confusing policy because he just told us they do not serve food outside. I said this is our first time here and this policy doesn't make us feel welcome. I don't think he really cared and made us feel like it was our problem to sort out.

When we received our bill they charged us for two portions of the scallops with noodles. I approached the waitress and pointed out the mistake and her response was...."I didn't charge you for dessert." I asked her if she could review the bill again. She comes back to our table and says oh yeah I charged you too much.

It kind of feels like a hipster place with a wait staff that could care less about customer service. We ordered Siu Mai Classic - Pork and Prawn, Prawn Har Gau, Crispy Prawn Won Ton, Courgette and Wood ear mushroom (v) and the Chocolate dumplings. I have to agree with the other reviewer....I've had better dumplings in China Town and way better service. The one thing that I did like was the chocolate dumpling and the Crispy Prawn Won Ton....that is why I am giving it at...

I have been to My Neighbours the Dumplings several times and I always had very positive things to say about it. So much so that I chose to celebrate my 30th birthday there with seven other people. On this occasion, however, I was left totally gobsmacked with the way I was treated by one of the waitresses.

My partner ordered the drinks for the table and asked whether they had the plum margarita. A member of staff pointed to a plum drink on the menu and said this was it, and so my partner ordered it on my behalf.

About 10 minutes later, I was looking at the menu and realised this was not the same plum margarita drink that the restaurant had on its menu previously, so I went upstairs to ask to change it.

I politely explained the situation and the waitress looked at me as if I was completely brainless and abruptly told me, “We don’t do plum margaritas.” I explained I’ve been to the restaurant several times before and they used to have a plum margarita hence my partner’s confusion. Plus, the staff had told him it was the same drink!

I thought the waitress was rude and she insisted she had made them and that there was nothing she could do. I asked whether she would consider taking it off the bill as a gesture of goodwill (we spent £400 that night and the drink would have been 1.75% of the total cost), which she quickly dismissed. She then aggressively put the drinks down on the table, making us all feel so uncomfortable. She then avoided our table for the entire evening.

While another waitress was extremely apologetic — and I must point out here that the food was great and all of the other staff were faultless, particularly the male bartender — I could not believe the way this particular waitress treated me. Considering this was a special birthday celebration, I personally found the whole experience upsetting. What’s more, they still charged me for the drink and my sister had to point out we didn’t want to pay for it due to how rude the other waitress was.

Having been a waitress myself, this is not how restaurants should treat their customers (let alone loyal ones who spend £100s each time...

I usually don’t write any reviews or complaints but after yesterday’s experience I want to share my disappointment. I have been to this restaurant many times in the past 5 years and I always loved the food, the atmosphere and never had an issue. My friend booked us a table for NYE so that we can have a meal before going out. I understand that no one really wants to work on NYE, I have done it 6 years in a row when I worked in hospitality, but the treatment we received was very unprofessional. We were told to order everything in one go since the kitchen was closing, which we did! My friend has a peanut allergy, so we were told that they would take extra care that the risk of cross contamination was reduced with her items. The food arrived in parts, and the server couldn’t tell us which was which dish. We made a point that there was someone with a peanut allergy and to please tell us which dumplings had the peanuts and which ones didn’t. If we had just assumed, this could have ended with a hospital visit. Every time my friend ordered a drink, it was forgotten about. We noticed after a while that my friend’s aubergine hadn’t arrived, so we asked and got told very rudely that the dishes will come out when they are ready. We waited a bit longer and then enquired again, and we’re just told: ‘the aubergine won’t be coming. The kitchen is closed.’ There was no apology, no attempt to show us that we were valued as customers, and my friend had to start her new year hungry. The only thing our server did was take the service charge off. Mistakes can happen, and when it’s busy, they are likely to happen. The problem here is that the person serving us, had zero people skills and we felt unwelcome the whole time. Not sure I will ever come back,...