Omboo — Restaurant in St Albans

We visited the main restaurant yesterday evening 21/9/19 to celebrate our wedding anniversary. We booked our reservation some weeks previously, explaining that to the lady who took our booking that it was a special occasion. She told me it would be noted on our booking. We arrived at 1900 hrs and was welcomed by the restaurant manger. We've been in that restaurant before on numerous occasions and enjoyed it very much. Sadly, this time we where extremely disappointed. "The menu is now new", - explained the manager. Last time we visited i was given the option of rib eye steak off the menu, i asked the manager could this be arranged on this occasion, as the new menu was very limited , and I didn't really fancy any of the mains shown. He said he would consult the chef, and see what he can do. He returned back five minutes later, explaining, the chef had only five rib eye steaks left, and they have been reserved for other customers, and he could only offer what was on the menu. With reluctance i chose the lamb fillet. I'm not big lamb eater, but settled for it. How sorry i was to micro sized pieces of lamb fillet . Pre-cooked and just about warm. I asked him what the other two objects on the plate where, he said he wasn't sure, but would speak with the chef to establish what they where. He returned back sometime later, informing me one object was a small sweetbread, or the intestine of the animal. I felt like throwing up, as i don't eat offal. The other bit was a small dumpling filled with some small pieces of lamb shoulder meat. All this costing £28.50. What a rip off price! I tasted the lamb fillet and left the remainder of rubbish. The starter was no better than my main course, cold micro sized piece of poached salmon, with some kind of mashed cold vegetable, at £12.50 I finished with the cheeseboard £10.50 again micro 3 micro sized pieces of well weathered cheese with boring thin biscuits. We where not even offered the petits fours with our tea for two, that was charged as per A La Carte Dinner Menu.

Well, some wedding anniversary celebration.... I had Coke Cola and my wife had a glass of red wine. Expensive evening out, for what i describe as first class rubbish charged at an extortionist price. Reluctantly, I have given the restaurant a one star rating. Not because of the lousy food, but the waitress who served some of plates, was extremely pleasant, explaining it was only her second day working at Sopwell House.

Cost was £148.00 Worst restaurant experience I've had...

Ruined Our Honeymoon

Where do we even start!! This was the shortest stay with only 3 hours at Sopwell House this was a nightmare from start to finish. What was meant to be a nice short break away for our honeymoon this was a huge disappointment. When booking this hotel we had emailed and called numerous times to try and get more information on spa packages etc. to which we was never able to get through! On arrival we was told that our room was not yet ready and we could either go to the cocktail bar (which was shut) or the Terrace bar (which we did not get spoken to for 20mins once we had sat down) We eventually got to order but the customer service was awful, no politeness or even thank you from any of the staff!! We then headed to reception as our room was ready and we asked if we could booked a treatment as this was meant to be a ‘relaxing’ break for us to be told there was no availability for any treatments and we did not have full access to the spa which was not clearly stated on the website. After the frustration of all what had already happened we then got taken to our room by a member of staff who did not follow guidelines at all and accessed our room without being welcomed in, touching all of our belongings! To then realise we was over looking a car park after paying what should have been a luxury stay in a corner suite, it was like staying in a standard room in a hotel that is not luxury at all! After complaining to the front of house manager we was told they could upgrade us but our time was done here and we insisted of a full refund and to leave straight away. Of course the General Manager was not around and we had to email.. we have had nothing but disappointed and have been told we will not receive a refund due to the hotels terms and conditions!! We have never felt so let down and frustrated from a company like Sopwell House and will not give up. DO NOT STAY HERE YOU WILL REGRET IT FROM...

We had a dinner in Omboo as a part of our package at Sopwell House. When we arrived, the staff did not acknowledge and did not explain how that would work - we had to ask, hostess lady said she will clarify, we had to ask again, then she went to discuss with someone and only after 10 minutes got back to us saying we have a deposit for food. I would expect this to be a smoother experience but ok.

The food itself was good, nothing extraordinary though. Desert was quite disappointing - I think they did not defrost it enough, so my parfait was more like a sorbet. We had a good waitress but when we were done with the food we could not get anyone to bring us the bill for 15 min - no one was paying attention to us.

The most unpleasant experience came when we were checking out. I billed the remaining balance (excluding this deposit) to the room, and decided to leave additional tip for the waitress who was good, rounding the total sum and writing the total in the field “Total” - the staff, however, took the amount I wrote down as the amount of gratuity, effectively doubling the bill. We were quite surprised to see it in our invoice. Thankfully, hotel reception was able to easily recover all the documents, saw that the restaurant did not record it correctly, and amended our final invoice.

I guess this could have been a genuine mistake but, to be honest, it’s hard to believe that they honestly thought that my tip was bigger than the bill itself.

It obviously left us very frustrated - this is not something you want to deal with during what supposed to be a...