Akbar's Restaurant — Restaurant in Scotland

When Akbar's first opened in Glasgow Wife & I went regularly for the first two years. We would always order karahi & request it very mild. It was always good & as requested however from then onwards it would come out fiery hot no matter how much I asked for it extra mild & after three or four attempts with broken promises I gave up & resolved never to go back. I made the mistake of doing so tonight only because we had guests coming from down south who wanted to meet us there. On arriving I explained to the initial waiter that we haven't visited for the past 10/11 years & why. I explained that this was their chance to again have my regular custom. We also now have two children (one 13 years old & one at 9 - the younger one has multiple life threatening food allergies) I explained that we needed the karahi extra mild & not to add any red or green chilli if possible but instead to substitute with black pepper as she cannot eat spicy whatsoever. The initial waiter said not to worry & that he would inform the kitchen & make sure it would all (lamb karahi gosht & lamb charsi karahi) be mild. The waiter called his Manager who informed that they do not have black pepper (this is most likely an untruth & I will explain later). He also informed wrongly that a Charsi Karahi cannot be made mild as it's made with green chillies & advised to take two standard lamb karahi gosht instead (sorry but I've had charsi karahi made mild all over the UK in numerous establishments. My family also used to operate desi restaurants so I'm not somebody you can fool). To keep the peace I agreed to take two karahi gosht I therefore asked the Manager to prepare it with only a tiny touch of red chilli powder which he agreed to. Out comes the food with the initial waiter who advised to try it & if it's too spicy he can change it. I tried one bite & my mouth was on fire. I explained that it was too spicy for my child. At this point the Manager comes over & says to me "there's no spice in it. I asked them to wash it." This is a contradiction in itself. If there's no spice in it why would you "ask them to wash it?" which brings me back to the claim that he made earlier that they have no black pepper - it looks very much like they have the lamb pre prepared with all the chillies/red chilli powder already added & they've tried to wash it off. To make matters worse it was nothing like a karahi which in a restaurant setting is pressure cooked along with tomatoes for a while then the tomatoes skins removed once soft & the tomato pulp cooked into the curry. This thing was more like a supermarket ready meal curry which looked & tasted like the meat had been washed then dumped in a tin of plum tomatoes which was watery & uncooked. The Manager was rude & argumentative, wasn't willing to listen to what the customer wants (complete indifference) & because the name AKBARS is famous he couldn't care less. I also felt rushed when ordering. I therefore told him that we will go elsewhere & that I'm not stupid & know fine a Karahi can be made mild contrary to his earlier claim. The poor waiter apologised however ultimately it's his useless Managers call so we got up & left.

I went to Namak Mandi instead where the Manager remembered me & my regular order without me even asking for it. I haven't seen him for probably two years! Guess what we had? A mild Lamb Charsi karahi along with the best Customer Service in Glasgow. Contrary to Akbar's Glasgow they treat you like family. I called my friends who met us there so Akbar's not only lost a party of 12 people tonight but my & my extended family's...

We booked our table on the Wednesday for the coming Saturday for 6 of us. We arrived and were shown to the worst table in the restaurant, stuck right in the corner next to the disabled toilets (I could smell the toilets from my seat) - not really acceptable considering we booked our table mid-week.

We were already off to a bad start, but things just got worse and worse - there were problems every step of the way as I'll explain.

They brought out our pakora, but it was not our waiter who brought it. It appeared to be someone from the kitchen who just threw it down as quickly as possible, knocking over an empty beer bottle as he was doing it. The pakora was rather nice, but the service very unprofessional. They then brought out our rice on little saucers - the presentation was terrible, like it was forgotten about and thrown together. We also asked for 4 portions of pilau rice but receive two boiled and two (what looked like) brown rice, but it could have been pilau. We didn't bother mentioning anything as we didn't want to wait on it being replaced. We also asked for tap water which took an age to arrive.

Myself and my friend ordered the Roshan Lal (with lamb), and my other friend ordered a different curry. All three looked identical when they arrived, so my third friend asked if his was different. Straight away the waiter seemed to go into defensive mode and took a spoon from the table and started digging about in all three of our curries, trying to point out the differences to us! This was really not on, and it was clear that all three curries were the same and that they were just trying to fob us off (they tasted identical too).

The Roshan Lal sauce was good, but the lamb was not tender like the menu stated, it was rather dry and quite tough - really disappointing. To top it off, they charged my friend £3.80 for a half pint of Cobra when a full pint was £4 - completely embarrassing to be honest. £4 for a pint in a restaurant is really good, but if they are going to charge only 20p less for a half then it would have been common courtesy for them to mention that at the time of ordering.

Unfortunately due to the many mistakes and how bad the service was, I will never be returning. I will be trying Mother India instead, which I have heard good...

As regular customers we are very disappointed by our recent visit to your restaurant (19/7/17) the food as always was great but the service was incredibly poor!We booked a table for four and were on arrival seated at the window.We sat directly beside a radiator that was so hot it was unbearable.We asked if the radiator could be switched off and we were informed that it shouldn't have been on and would be switched off immediately.The radiator remained on throughout our meal (despite asking a further two staff members to turn it off) and by the time we left one of our party actually ha sweat dripping down her face!As I said the food was as always lovely but we were left very uncomfortable and embarrassed by the constant attempts by your staff to remove food from our table before we had finished it.At one point a staff member actually removed a friend's meal from her halfway through her meal and walked away with it! We felt constantly harassed to finish our food and when staff (for the third time) attempted to remove food from our table I had to ask them to stop and give us time to eat.We we're constantly hovered over and the visit was extremely uncomfortable and embarrassing for us as we had two guests from London with us and they were visibly shocked by the behaviour of staff.Towards the end of our meal we ordered four coffees which never arrived.When I asked a staff member he said they had been forgotten about and he would get them but after a further twenty five minute wait they still hadn't arrived.By this time we so unhappy with the very poor service and the searing heat we had to endure we left our meal unfinished and went elsewhere for coffee.I was so disappointed with our experience at your restaurant thatI called yesterday to speak to someone regarding our visit.I was informed that someone would call me back at some point yesterday but I didn't receive a call.This is completely unacceptable and some of the worst customer service I have ever...