Shahbarose — Restaurant in Manchester

AWEFUL experience. We bought the groupon voucher thinking we will have an amazing experience with filled tummies after a full day of fasting. First of all the 'before discount price' Is a lie and misleading. When we arrived to the restaurant we told them about the voucher and booking they did not even know we had a booking. Then they did not even tell us anything or asked us what we would like just picked up the plates and left. Also took the menu. When they took the menu we thoughts it's probably because they are serving a Ramadan buffet. We sat there clueless then everyone got up and queued up for food we got up too we were at the back of the queue and no one said anything to us till we got to the end of the queue the manager said u don't get food from here I am bringing your food to ur table. Mind u like everyone else we were also fasting so starving in short. Embarrassed we went back to our table and 10 mins later we got tiny servings of mezze which looked like for one person nor two!! Then they cleared up our table (no one took our drinks order took away the menu too) we had to call them for our order to which the lady refused when we asked for a milkshake then when my husband insisted she said ok I will try (then forgot about it) then without asking what we want for our mains they just slapped two tiny kebabs with dry pita and LOAD of onions in front of us! There was no such thing is 8 courses it was as if they gave us leftover onions and kebabs! There were loads of options in the buffet and the menu online so we know we could have had anything! But no they just gave us two dey kebabs. then my husband again asked for our drink and the lady asked 'what it was' AGAIN. she came with it after a bit and believe me that was the worst Oreo shake ever!! It didn't even taste of Oreo and it wasn't even thick or cold! Then our plates got cleared up no one asked if we would like our desserts we kept waiting for them to come to us and when they didn't we asked for it and guess what? Stale old tiny pieces of baklawa were slapped on the table (clearly didn't want to give it) then left. We got up paid our bill and the manager had the audacity to ask for a review!! The food looked amazing on the other tables so I won't say it's a bad restaurant but the service for people with Groupon was horrible!! The buffet diners got amazing service for £14 each we paid £29 for Groupon for two people and got what?? Pathetic service and a bad experience with food! They could have treated us well asked us what we wanted to eat rather then deciding themselves! I am gutted that even Groupon doesn't give a refund for bad service it was money gone...

I reeeally wanted to go to this place and give it five stars. I’ll start with the positives for that reason. The menu is authentic, with a couple of familiars for the less adventurous (like biryani) and plenty of good Arabic food for those that want something you can’t get in most places

The cook(s) definitely know how to cook the food. The people complaining about the food being burned clearly don’t realise that this is supposed to be chargrilled (they aren’t painting the effect on like some places, this is the real deal).

Where it falls short is that the ingredients, while fresh, aren’t as fresh as they could be.

There are only two items which lost the fifth star entirely - and they’re so easy to fix!

The onions have clearly been chopped in advance. First, that really is lazy. There were only eight people in there when we went. Second, they’ve been chopped so far in advance that they’ve developed the distinct smell and taste that comes with leaving chopped onions to sweat.

We got the shawarma as one of our dishes. When it came out hot, it was stunning. A real highlight. As it cooled. The taste of the sweaty salad started to take over. It ruined it. Unfortunately, the second item also started to make the dish sticky and soggy

The oil wasn’t clean. You could taste it. Again, we were one of the first tables served that night so this really shouldn’t have been the case. Even worse, this dirty oil infected every cooked dish that we had

It’s a real shame because the building is very clean! I have no concerns about hygiene but the oil has clearly been used, reused, and left to be used again for a few more nights

The quality of the menu and cooking itself, along with the service from the staff, should make this place five stars, even without sprucing up the outside. Unfortunately, these two issues knock a full star off

I genuinely hope that they address these items because this place deserves some real...

Visited on a Wednesday at 7pm, the restaurant had a simple but nice theme with the deco, toilets seemed clean but had a bit of a public toilet smell, would benefit from air fresheners. We were the only people in the restaurant-though considering the day and time I think that's why, I think this place probably does fill up more on the weekend as they have a Sunday buffet. Orderd meat samosa starter and hummus, hummus was nice in flavour and smooth, mini samosas were quite dry and plain in taste. For mains we got kofta kebab and grilled chicken with flat breads, again the meats were quite dry but the chicken flavour was nice. Having some sauces served with the dishes would have been nice but was only served with lettuce and onion. We orderd desi tea which was fresh not packet so we was glad about that, a little strong on the cardamon though. We purchased a ticket for our food via groupon and we didn't know how to access the code online at first to show we had baught the groupon ticket, the receptionist said i had to find it on my emails but the man who I presume was the owner or manager came out and he seemed quite impatient and said I have to find it on groupon (I was only looking at emails because thats what the receptionist told me to do), I just needed to have a couple of minutes to figure out to access the code from groupon but he seemed impatient and slightly stern. Earlier on in our meal he did seem quite nice though and blessed us with an Eid mubarak. The receptionist/waiter girl was realy nice and polite, she wasn't too familiar with the menu or the deal offer though but she did say she was a new worker, she also came to clear our plates when I hadn't quite finished eating, she was very nice though and I think just eager to do her new job right. Probably wouldn't re visit this place but perhaps a good place to go on a Sunday for the buffet for people who like very simple food, and somewhere...