Flavour of Mauritius — Restaurant in Reading

Delicious food and friendly staff.. We decided to try out Flavour of Mauritius last night 3 adults and 3 children and we weren't disappointed. Firstly. The restaurant itself is nicely decorated, it has a real holiday feel, as you enter they even have a little area where they sell local produce from Mauritius. At the back of the restaurant there is a fab tikki hut which you can reserve. The fish tank kept the kids amused whilst waiting. The staff are lovely, friendly and welcoming and couldn't do enough for us. The owner is a lovely lady who came out and spoke to us, she even advised us that we ordered too much rice and suggested reducing it. Let's get onto the food. The menu has a great choice, especially for vegans and vegetarians, I struggled to choose as I normally don't get this amount of choice as a veggie. The food was delicious, flavoursome, fragrent and tasty. If you're worried about it being too hot, you can order a less spicy option and ask for the home made chilli-paste which you can then add accordingly, the paste by the way is delicious with hints of lemongrass before you get that warm punch of heat, but not over bearing. Deserts were also delicious. And what we couldn't eat we were given boxes to take away. We paid between 20-30 each that included us having a starter, main and desert plus 2 non alcoholic drinks each, and a couple of extra dishes (because I'm greedy and couldn't decide). Yes there is a discretionary 15% service charge, but normally tip anyway, and to be fair, the menu price I think is cheap and the service wad excellent so well worth the service charge. We will be...

First, the positives: Great to have a Mauritian restaurant in Reading Decor is very well done Friendly service Some nice items from Mauritius for sale such as chutneys, tea, snacks Starters are pretty well done, especially the fried ones like the Taro fritters Good selection on the menu Alouda drink is very good Appeared clean, good toilet facilities

Negatives: Jackfruit curry had only 4 small pieces of Jackfruit Main meal portions are too small, barely enough for 1 adult The lamb and goat meat in the curry was very dry and chewy, I wouldn't eat it again. I had to sawcut the lamb into edible pieces. Lamb looked like it wasn't cooked well, sauce not permeated into the meat. Maybe cooked before /separately and added to sauce Flavour of curry was not as tasty like in Mauritius The roti and paratha was not cooked enough and doughy. It's not good on the digestion if not thoroughly cooked. Paratha was more doughy than the roti, needs to be thinner and cooked more until all the color has turned. Charged 15% service charge, not sure if that was a mistake but Mauritians and most Brits will only be happy to tip voluntarily IF food and service is good, not automatically added. Understood these are hard times but unless food is beyond reproach I don't think you should be adding large tips.

To be positive, the restaurant really has a lot going for it and I hope it does well and takes on constructive criticism to do better. In my opinion just need some improvement on some of the typical Mauritian meat items to match the standards of restaurants and home cooked food...

Honestly I’m upset. Having recommended this place to friends for a night out I lovely meal became filled with drama. To start with I won’t lie the food here was as always great. Curries were rich and flavourful and cocktails were fruity and punchy. But sadly the service and attitude let the night down.

We took at long time to sit down and ordered food separately, this ultimately meant we didn’t complete our order until 45 mins after arrival. Starter’s probably came after 45/60min and while most were excellent a problem with one caused an argument.

Now at no point is it ok for the head chef/maître d'/owner to come out and berate a customer. A wrong dish was brought out, ultimately you can not say if some one ordered the wrong dish or was miss heard. What followed was a back and forth of I’m right you’re wrong. The “correct” starter eventually came out with the mains another hour so later with a spoon fee apology from the barmaid on behalf for the owner.

This was not a busy night, one table of four were also present but they seemed to be finished much quicker than we were.

Later on a main was swapped from lamb to chicken because apparently the lamb was too fatty. The waitress/barmaid (I think only three people work here) thought we had been told.

Every bit of food eaten was lovely but the service was argumentative, bar the owners husband who was pleasant and chatty and acted as auxiliary waiter.

If you go as a small table, expect a lovely meal, go as a group and...