Clay's Kitchen & Bar — Restaurant in Reading

I went there with lot of excitement..but was treated in a racist way by the Caucasian table host who was lying about table reservations. She tried to give a table in the farthest corner between big potted plants. When the whole place was empty. I requested there a table close to it but and she lied about it being reserved. Anyone can see through her instinctive lying.I walked out. I am a tourist from nyc and this kind of attitude would never be tolerated in the big Apple..UK can never grow up..God bless America!

Update 2: In response to the owner update. I am going to”try” take the high road here and break down your excuses.

Here goes nothing…

Your meandering excuse for the poor customer service touches upon many areas, which is bigger than you and me. I am going to save that for the end.

Falsehood 1: “..we still tried to squeeze you in and offered the only table available at that time” I took some time to analyze your past comments and you seem to have a pattern of giving excuse (or shall we call it lies) as though you are always doing a “great favor” or “charity” by letting customers into a restaurant .(case in point: review from customers with kids) Customers are the reason you run a restaurant. Not the other way round. So change the attitude.

So there was no “squeezing” in.. when I arrived the place was virtually empty in the lower bottom. So leave the false pretense.

I understand what goes into a restaurant. As I mentioned in my review, I walked into your place with lots of excitement and anticipation. I was not biased, prejudiced or had any contempt of any sort. Yet you failed and disappointed the customer enough to write a review. So instead of making it look like its ALL customers fault. Own up that you failed in some aspect and try to improve. Once again I AM NOT THE ONLY ONE complaining about customer service. I WONT BE THE LAST. Unrelated people giving you the same feedback about customer service. THERE MUST BE TRUTH in it. :):) (I am sure all of them reading this review realize that apart from you, since you are in denial mode.) My intention was to be least disruptive as I understand what goes into a restaurant. If you are wondering how I know, because I OWN restaurants, central kitchen etc in North America. We make the best effort to make the customer comfortable and focus on customer service

So you are talking to a person who has done this before under similar conditions, You called me many things “shame on you”, “pathetic”.. what not… I could do the same or worse in insulting you personally. No big deal. But then you and I will become the same level. So…(sigh). I am not going to.

BIGGEST FALSEHOOD: “I was there the whole time and saw everything that happened and she was nothing but professional and nice to you. “

But I have to point out to other readers, this is the BIGGEST lie. You the owner did not walk down with your hostess to seat me (why would you on a “busy” Saturday evening ..extra security ? lol). You were just standing near the entrance of the restaurant. So you were NOT there the whole time and you did not see everything. That is the BIGGEST LIE :) :). Once again anyone who read this can see through that bluff.

Also you have used this line (“I was there the whole time”) in your defense against various customers poor reviews. So that MUST have also been a lie as well. Customers come to restaurants to have good time..NOT to write bad reviews…. on the other hand you come to make money so the chances are you are lying to make more money and cover the poor customer service. The world will believe the customer more. I never said your hostess was NOT hardworking young woman or NOT professional or NOT NICE. So your hostess may NOT have lied and I may have been wrong in my assumption. BUT YOU ARE DEFINITELY LYING WHEN you claim you saw “EVERYTHING“ :):)

Just minimize LYING on public forums and focus on your customer service skills. I will not comment further about this restaurant and waste more time.

The public will be the judge on who...

After reading the reviews, couple of things are very clear that I am not alone in my experience and secondly owner doesn't like the negative feedback, in fact I was appalled by the arrogant & condescending tone of the replies made to other negative reviews.

I rang to book the table an hour before arrival but I was told to go to website for booking, where I quickly tried to book the table but it asked me for my credit card details. Surely I had all the plans to have dinner there but idea of leaving my bank details to local restaurants database isn't something that was appealing for me. I can't trust major firms let alone a random website of a local restaurant. Anyways we arrived at the place without booking, it was Wednesday night anyway, half of the restaurant is empty but we are told all table are reserved for 7 and 7.30pm ( which I have no reason to doubt) and we were offered high table which wasn't suitable for us with kid in a pram. When we shared the concern, no offer for high chair for kid was made. Staff looked completely uninterested in accomodating us. In fact I apologized for declining the high table that was offered.

Now before you condescendingly tell me how booking system works, perhaps you should take this feedback into consideration. Previous review on this issue has been liked 4 times and another one 6 times. May be you should make arrangement in your restaurant so you don't decline customer only because you can't accommodate kids. Asking for table choice at the time of booking can also free up tables for walk in customers. Family Indian restaurant acting in this fashion is beyond me.

Also, I hope you have your policies reviewed by competent lawyer specially around not letting customer book the table without them leaving their bank card details on your website.

Now you know that I won't be able to respond your reply, you can either act as expected of you and go into anger fit in response or you reflect on how your policies and attitude is not appropriate for a restaurant in small cavarsham town.

Update: I felt compelled to address the response.

I have only reviewed the 'service element' and not the food or the environment. I am within my rights to review the service I received from the point I entered the resturant and left.

'If you don't trust us with you banking details then it's upto you' This is exactly the reason I asked you get it reviewed by a competent lawyer. Your website doesn't have any data protection and retention policy mentationed at all yet you expect customers to handover their banking data to you ? Buying online often doesn't involve leaving cards details on merchant website and transections are managed through encrypted & secure licensed channels for which all relevant policies are mentioned along with FCA certs.

'Try to accomodate with high table which wasn't to your liking' . That is entitlement, as business it's a basic expectation from you to not refuse a customer but somehow you feel it's a favour to customer that you offering them your food. Also it's not matter of liking, with pram high table is impractical and not even a slightest effort was made to address it!

'Fully booked on Wednesday evening' Before turning up when I rang up for booking, upon being directed to website, I asked what is availability like, I was told plenty are available yet as we arrived in 30-45 min, with only 4-5 tables being occupied you are telling me it was fully booked. I was trying to give benefit of doubt in original review comment but now I have to call you out on this lie.

Being in hospitality business, you have failed to understand that when a customer turns up to your establishment, they have certain expectations and when they are refused with their kid, it's extremely disappointing, you unapologetically asking your potential customers to find another place is the arrogance I referred to earlier.

I do however agree that, let the readers...

We went on a busy Saturday night with very high expectations based on the reviews here and on Trip Advisor. I am sad to say we were disappointed with the food. The biriyani is outstanding but the rest can use a lot of improvement.

Contrary to other reviews, we felt the service was excellent. The waitstaff were very attentive and went to great lengths to explain each dish and to let us know when to expect our food. They were very knowledgeable on the food itself - despite several of them just being students from the nearby uni. Service is slow - expect to spend 2 hours or more on a busy night but one doesn't mind this if the food makes up for it (which it didn't in our case). The owner and the chef made an effort to greet each table and ask how the food was. It felt like they knew a lot of the repeat customers.

The downstairs feels claustrophobic on a busy Saturday night. The restaurant likes to seat large parties in the basement. The low ceilings, the minimal space between tables, the noise, and the fact that the aircon wasn't switched on until the chef came down only adds to the unease for those who may prefer something quieter.

What was wrong with the food? It is not as authentic Andhra or Telengana as the menu suggests. Several of the item preparations could be rethought. Kodi chips had more batter than meat. Some of the chips were too chewy. Ditto with the mirchi chaat - the peppers were tiny compared to the batter around it and it is hard to taste the filling inside. I also had to explain to our guests that the mirchi bajjis were made more in a North Indian style than what we eat in Telengana and Andhra. The twice fried bindi should have been pan fried more before being deep fried. Our was therefore slightly raw. Moreover, bindi in Andhra comes with cooked onions, not the dried onions you can get in a box.

The description of the fish pulusu on the menu promises a homemade Andhra fish curry. The sauce looked like any base gravy used in restaurants. The fish itself was fresh but the dish just seemed to be missing something.

The pooris were small and oily. They also weren't as puffed up as they should have been.

The coconut dessert lacked any sort of flavour. The double ka meetha should be sweeter.

Which brings us to the biriyani. They slow cook the biriyani throughout the day in a clay pot. Given the time it takes to do this, it was explained to us that they can only make 35 pots in a day - which is a slight problem on a busy night. And as the menu suggests, they only put three pieces of meat (on the bone) in the biriyani. However the pot itself is big enough for two people to share meaning that one person gets lucky with two pieces of meat and the other gets just the one piece. That is not how biriyani should be shared!

I have purposely avoided mentioning the prices until now. We were a group of 5 and paid £120 with service. I have no qualms for paying for good food. I also never measure the average quantity they serve per pound. We regularly pay through our nose at some of the Indian restaurants in Mayfair but come away satisfied that it was a delicious meal and you forget the size of the bill. My problem with the prices at this restaurant is that none of us (and there were 5 of us) walked out feeling this restaurant was worth revisiting - definitely not for the prices they charge. If only the food had been better we wouldn't complain about the price.

I do wish the owners the best of luck and hope they take this review...