Cafe India dingwall — Restaurant in Scotland

I have thought over this for a little while, as I normally only write positive reviews, but I am not happy with our experiences at this restraunt. First time food tasty enough but not hot, more warm we were the only diners in at that moment so felt this was not brilliant, but tasted nice. My partner and I returned for.the buffet lunch on a week day, Thursday, we again only diners in, now we do appreciate why the full buffet wasn't available, the choices were to be off the menu, that's fine as we have dined like that before, but normally you select and smaller portions are made and brought direct from the kitchen. Choices being tje word here. No, not in this case we were brought the standard selection of pakora and bahji and samosa, no explanation, nothing, food again Warm not hot. The proprietor then sat at front desk and began making phone calls, bills etc, once finished came and cleared plates and asked if mild medium or hot curry, we selected medium, that was the only choice, which diminishes the ethos of a buffet where you can select type and ingredients of what you want. We were brought 2 curries, both chicken and our rice, and additional nan bread that we had asked for, 1 of the dishes relatively pleasant, again Warm, the other inedible due to chicken meat texture nan was wrong one , again we were ignored as there were phone calls to be made, when he did come back to the table the nan was not eaten as wrong, oh I thought you wanted plain, but wrote garlic, when mentioned about the tough fibrous chicken was basically told that was the chickens fault, suppliers issue not theirs. I was mystified by this responce, wasn't offered other dish selections, nothing as you would again expect from a buffet, on leaving presented with the full bill even though only 1 dish eaten, we should have brought this up at the time, but I feel we would not have been responded to in a sympathetic manner, given what we had been told at the table. Poor quality of food and customer service. We won't be returning I'm afraid. Really disappointed 😞

I have just noted the owners response and am going to take the right to reply. On the first visit we were a table of 5, we had 5 starters, 5 mains, 5 rice and 3 side dishes. Not once did we request a change of table or anything close to that. 2nd visit it was myself and my husband. It was the buffet, as written above, we ordered 2 people for.the buffet, and again at no point t was there a mention of changing tables or sharing A meal , we were never a table.if 4 either. The proprietor is sadly mistaken amd misleading in their responce. Such a shame that a review whether positive or negative cannot be met in an acceptable and truthful manner. It would have been a different review if we had been offered even a small recompense for the 2nd occasion, but we were not. And the written responce just goes to clarify what I suggested would have happened if we had entered a discussion at the time. A further...

I recently visited this café and had quite a mixed experience. While the food itself was generally good and nicely presented, the overall experience left a lot to be desired.

The service was frankly disappointing. It felt like our table was being deliberately ignored while other guests seemed to receive far more attentive service. The manager in particular appeared to be favoring certain tables, which made the experience uncomfortable and frankly disheartening. Whether this was intentional or not, the inconsistency in treatment was hard to ignore and affected our entire evening.

To make things worse, there’s a strange policy requiring every person to order a main dish — something I’d expect at a formal restaurant, not at a place that calls itself a cafe. Cafes are usually known for being more casual and flexible, so this rule felt unnecessarily rigid and out of touch with the dining style they seem to be going for.

All in all, while the kitchen delivers, the front-of-house experience really needs serious improvement. The atmosphere and service made us feel unwelcome, and it’s not a place I’d return to or recommend. I truly hope they reflect on how they treat their guests — hospitality is about more...

Before I commence my review this is not about the food as I believe its an excellent restaurant if you can get past the uninviting, brusque, surly waitress. I have considered the content of this review before writing it as it is with disbelief at the way a visitor to Dingwall & to this restaurant was was treated! On arrival & the manner in which we were greeted you would think we had offended this young lady by having the audacity to enter the building. After a series of unfortunate interactions she then proceeded to add insult by ignoring us & chatting to someone. When we eventually dared to ask if she could take our order her reply was "in a minute"! After finishing her conversation with her friend & answering the phone she then threw a few more withering looks. Enough is enough we decided to leave, asked for the drinks bill & were immediately dsmissed from the restaurant. I suppose this review is advice for the owners, if you want to makea success of your business consider strongly your front of house. Regardless of where you come from everyone should be treated with respect!

To the owner, I'm sure that would have been an interesting...