Gonbay - Sale — Restaurant in Trafford

Booked a table for 7pm on Sunday, arrived on time to a confused waitress, who was clearly not expecting us. The restaurant is small and cramped and with it being busy, myself, my partner and two young sons (6 and 7) were trying our best just to stay out of the way. It was really awkward and uncomfortable but after a while we were escorted upstairs by two (really lovely and professional) waitresses, who quickly cleared and cleaned a large table for us. They apologised profusely for our wait and brought us some prawn crackers. No sooner had we taken our coats off, another woman came over and demanded we move off the table and go back downstairs. The young waitresses were visibly horrified by her interruption. Though the woman was rude and aggressive, we got up out of our seats without fuss, reasoning that they must have a larger group for this table and that a small table had now become free downstairs. On getting back downstairs, I scanned the room and was confused to see that there were no free tables. The woman that had removed us from the table then said, "Yeah come back later." Absolutely baffled by this point, I calmly explained to her that we had booked a table for 7pm. "Yeah yeah I know but come back later..." I stood stunned, waiting for a further explanation or, at the very least, an apology but she just turned on her heels and stomped off. Everyone was looking at us and I felt so embarrassed. We went outside into the cold with my boys, who were now both in tears. We rarely treat ourselves to a meal out; they had been looking forward to it all day and were really hungry after all the messing about. Luckily my youngest had managed to snaffle a prawn cracker before the woman had swiped the basket off the table 😂 The one thing (other than the lovely waitresses who had first seated us) that we have to thank the Gonbay for is that, on being turned away from their cramped, sweaty 'restaurant', we were luckily able to get a last minute table at Red Chilli Qingdao Restaurant. And wow, what an amazing experience! Beautiful setting and incredible service (I'll save the rest for another review!) We had a wonderful evening in the end, so cheers to the Gonbay! Safe to say, we will never darken your...

Complete shambles when we visited, despite there being plenty of staff in evidence. We had booked well in advance. Ordered our starters and mains. Ten minutes or so later another person came out and asked again what we wanted for our mains. Twenty minutes or more after ordering our starter we were advised that they "had run out of it". Didn't they know that sooner? It was too late for us to order another starter so we said to just bring the mains which arrived eventually and tbh were ok but just ok, nothing spectacular. We had ordered drinks which had arrived but had also asked for water at the same time and had to ask again before we got it some time later. Another table of 6 nearby were waiting absolutely ages and their meals all arrived at very different times and they too ran out of time and ended up cancelling parts of their meal which had not arrived and not finishing before they had to leave. Another couple spoke to us and said one had received their starter ages before and the other was still waiting. We could hear loud arguing and shouting coming from the kitchen. The staff were talking to each other about people telephoning to complain about take away orders. The heating wasn't on in late December and the place was cold. The bill arrived and they had already added a 10% service charge which frankly the service didn't warrant but not being mean we were prepared to pay. When paying unbelievably the waitress asked if we wanted to pay an additional tip to which we replied "are you joking? You've already added 10% to the bill without asking which is more than is deserved we aren't paying more than 10%"! Maybe they were just having an extremely bad day, who knows? We certainly won't be wasting our time and money again! If you like food of mediocre quality, loud shouting from the kitchen as a backdrop to your meal, slow, disorganised and chaotic service and have plenty of time to spare I'd recommend you visit. Fawlty Towers springs to mind! I laughed a lot because it was so bad, my companion and the other diners present...

My family and I have been loyal customers to the Altrincham restaurant for many, many years. Having moved to Urmston we have since been ordering online for delivery from the Sale restaurant. It was previously mentioned that delivering to Urmston was ‘too far’ yet the website accepts the address and even adds a ‘surcharge’ due to the distance. Bringing the delivery charge to £6.00(!) It was disappointing to receive a phone call asking for me to collect the order as Urmston is ‘too far’. I explained that Google maps shows it is a 12 minute drive which they disputed (and claimed it was a 25 minute drive). I explained I would welcome a refund and take my custom elsewhere (given I had placed a £70 order and was feeling somewhat of a burden to them). They declined and agreed to deliver but said I’d have to wait an hour. Upon delivery the lady went on to complain about the distance and stated she would not be delivering to here again. Fortunately for them, there won’t be another opportunity as we will take our repeat...