3idiots Ayr — Restaurant in Scotland

We've visited here before and LOVED it, however tonight really did disappoint in a spectacular fashion. We went in to the restaurant around 3pm to enquire about vegan food. The guy told us they could do vegan korma etc and just to ask when we ordered. So, come 5pm we phoned our order in. A vegan korma with tofu. Saag aloo. Peshwari Naan. Garlic Naan. 2 poppadoms. Boiled rice. My dad ordered a mince paratha and a curry sauce.

My dad drove to Ayr to collect (from Catrine) and brought the food home for a Saturday night treat.

When the food arrived it was inedible. The korma was like watery soup...no taste, vegetables mushy like ye'r auld gran had boiled them to death. Tofu rubbery and rank. The Saag aloo was bitter, like lemon juice had been used. The Peshwari Naan was lovely, cannot deny that. Basically...with the food inedible we called to speak to the manageress, if you can call her that. She informed us the chef 'made what he could with the ingredients he had'. Smashing. Make a dug's baws of the food but charge full price. As we made the call my dad ate his paratha and attempted to eat his sour curry sauce. When he finished we abandoned our plans and package up the food to go back to Ayr.

On his arrival the staff took the food through the back and I can only assume performed an autopsy on it. Leaving my dad standing in the busy venue for 20 minutes. After an argument they refunded £21. Saying the paratha,a naan, a few dips of sour curry sauce and 2 poppadoms came to the value of £14!!

Let's recap here...the original order cost us £35. On arrival home (20 minute car journey) the food was inedible! So, entire evening was ruined. Only my dad could eat. No-one else. We packaged it all up and drove it 20 mins BACK to Ayr. And at this point they argued for 20 mins and refunded £21!!!

I have never experienced service like it. Any other respected establishment, like Ayr India or Rupee Room would have been mortified they'd served less than perfect food and refunded without hesitation!

I previously blogged how fab this place was. But...I realise, they only care about their seated customers. The take away customers are second class customers. And...the manageress couldn't have cared less. Let's say her field of *ucks was barren! The three idiots (by this I refer to the three guys who own the establishment) hid behind the kitchen doors and wouldn't even talk to my Dad. The three guys are always labelled as super friendly and caring...but wait until you ask for a refund because of inedible food. Their mask slips! The nice side disappears and you're left with three total idiots devoid of any personality at all!

If I can offer any advice - - Go to the Rupee Room or Ayr India!! Avoid here, the only thing they do with ease is put the idiots in their name!

in response to owner's comments Sadly your response is entirely fabricated. You did not offer anything of the kind when we called. In fact you were most unhelpful on the phone. We explained the meal and night was ruined and we would return the food for a refund. We did not stipulate one dish however did drive the point on the korma as it was disgusting. Do you really think we'd waste a Saturday night driving 20 mins each way to and from your store with one rank korma? Neither myself or my father were aggressive. He stood in your shop for 10 mins, and called me to say you'd taken the food and appeared not to coming back, hiding behind the kitchen door chatting to the owners. At this point we called you! So you again lie! My dad was being intimidated by your drivers, as one of your staff went out to prime them. He said they were lined up watching him at the door. Yet we're branded as aggressive. Your food on this occasion was awful and of substandard quality. Nothing we returned had been touched as it was inedible. You historically don't accept criticism, we can se that from anyone who leaves a bad review. You got the order wrong. You simply needed to say sorry, refund the money without a palaver. Your customer service is appalling. Fear not we will...

We have a local ladies lunch/dinner club in Ayr with over 160 members. We have eaten at many of the local restaurants and have never had an issue. 3idiots was suggested to us by one of our members. Tonight, we were a pretty small group with only 5 of our members in attendance.

I’ll start with the service. The man who was acting as front of the house was absolutely miserable. Not a smile. Not a kind word. He took our drink order by simply stating “DRINKS?!” loudly. I can’t recall the last time we’ve had such unfriendly service. But… we always have a good laugh when we’re together, so we disregarded his lack of customer service. He had placed regular, more expensive menus on the table. One of our party asked if there was a tapas menu. (The front of their restaurant literally says they are an Indian Tapas restaurant.) He sighed and was obviously annoyed but provided us with tapas menus. Everyone in our small party ordered from the TAPAs menu.

This is a tiny, tiny restaurant with tacky pictures on the wall and gold paint everywhere. There is no view. No ambience. It feels like you’re eating in a cheap takeaway. The restaurant was fairly empty and we were sat right under the AC. It was absolutely freezing. I know the weather outside is reaching record highs, but it felt like Lapland in there. Brrr. Even though everyone told him it was too cold, nothing was done about it. The cold air blowing down directly on us would later make our food cold quickly as well.

The food was standard Indian food. Tasty, but nothing phenomenal. Having it in a tapas style was unique and everyone shared bits and bobs. We had to signal him for drink refills. After we finished our meal, he quickly removed all of the plates. We had to ask for the check 20 minutes later.

We tell everyone in our lunch/dinner group that they are welcome to dine with us no matter their budget. There is no judgment if you can only afford to order a side of chips. It’s about coming out and enjoying yourself. Having a laugh. Connecting with other women in your community. Women from all age ranges and financial situations have joined our group. We’ve been meeting for nearly a year and as previously mentioned, have dined at many local establishments. We have never had an issue with a restaurant allowing members to only pay for what THEY ordered UNTIL TONIGHT.

This man REFUSED to let each of us pay separately for what we ordered. I can understand if the restaurant was busy and bustling, but there were only 2 other tables and both had been served their food. He demanded that one person pay the entire bill. When we refused, he became angry and insisted they do NOT divide bills. There were no signs posted and he did not tell us when we ordered that one person would be required to pay the full bill.

We continued to refuse and say there was not ONE person who was going to pay the bill. We told him we would pay for what we ordered. He refused. In the end, he divided it into 5 equal amounts and DEMANDED we had to each pay that amount.

This was especially frustrating and intimidating for one member of our party who had specifically ordered less food because of her budget. Her food ended up totalling under £14 but she had to pay more than £22 because of the nasty man at this restaurant. She was embarrassed and I was mortified that he was being so aggressive with us.

I understand if the man had made our group aware of this policy beforehand, but he did not. He would still be receiving the full amount if we divided it according to what we ate.

With other, more polite options to choose from, our group won’t be back to 3idiots. I’ve shared our experience within our group. If you want good Indian food with STELLAR service, try Ayr India on the beach. Great atmosphere. Amazing food. A much larger menu. Excellent customer service and Stunning views. Give these...

This is a difficult review to write because certain dishes were outstanding, while others were bland and tasteless. The attitude of the waiter was disgraceful – he was arrogant, and despite, on the face of it, appearing helpful and concerned with how our meal was going, at certain points the mask slipped and created an uncomfortable environment at our table.

I ordered the King Prawn Tandoori (not listed on the menu but listed online, oddly) as a main, and asked for the Karahi sauce (as I usually do) to be extra spicy. The waiter seemed completely taken aback by this and responded in an extremely curt and rude manner: 'we don't usually do that as we like our customers to be able to taste the flavours'. I was flabbergasted by this, but as he could see I was unimpressed with his demeanour, he offered 'as a one-off' to make the curry to my desired strength. I don't know if he got the memo, but restaurants are supposed to – as long as it is feasible – cater to the customer's tastes and needs. Every Indian restaurant I've been to, be it low-end or high-end, has been happy to make my curry extra spicy. I asked for it to be madras strength, but alas if wasn't to be because the curry sauce wasn't only not spicy, it was bland.

The rest of my family felt similarly about the curry sauces – they all looked the same and were all quite bland. So much for wanting to let customers 'taste the flavours'!

Stand-out dishes: the spiced haddock was incredible, the fish pakora was a delicacy (best we've ever had), the king prawns were succulent and well-spiced.

Let downs: the vegetable pakora was utterly tasteless, every single curry sauce was extremely bland, quite watery, and the portion of curry sauce which came with the (al a carte) king prawn tandoori was miserable, and as mentioned earlier, was not made to my desired strength.

On balance, some of the dishes were fantastic but taking it all together, it just wasn't good enough to justify...