Palatable Nigerian Cuisine — Restaurant in Austin

I am typing this review while sitting on a toilet for the 5th time at 1:15am. While I’m mad, I’m still trying to be fair, hence the 2 stars. I am in Austin for a conference and I ate at palatable twice. The first time, I went in person and had amala, it was good, nothing remarkable but also no serious concerns. The meat was a little hard but I feel like that’s fairly common. My friend had jollof rice and the food came out cold and she talked about food safety with them not maintaining food at the proper temperature. That should have been a sign but I ignored it cuz I kept eyeing the egusi soup someone else at the restaurant was eating. Today is my last day in Austin and I decided to order egusi and poundo via Uber eats. If you scroll down, you’ll see other reviewers talked about how they felt cheated when they order online as opposed to going to eat in person. Comments like I was only given bones, or fewer pieces of meat, etc, so when I made my order I added a note asking for soft meats, no bones. I attached a picture of what came. The egusi had way more oil than soup. I saw multiple people eat egusi when I visited the restaurant and it wasn’t this oily. I had to pour out the oil to be able to eat this soup but it wasn’t very good cuz it just tasted very much like unbleached palm oil. Still I finished it cuz I live in a city that doesn’t have a single Nigerian restaurant so this was my last chance. I had that meal around 8pm and I’ve been to the toilet 5 times since then. Palatable owners, y’all need to do better. I met the man and his wife who owns the restaurant and they seem like a nice couple but you need to do better and stop acting like this is Nigeria where you can get away with anything. How do you pack oil inside soup like this? And how clean is your kitchen and food handling staff? Are people washing their hands before handling food? I am honestly tempted to call the authorities to do an inspection of your facility cuz I’ve never had diarrhea this bad in my life. And this was my first meal today, so I’m sure I got food poisoning from you. People trying to visit here, do it at...

Palatable banks on the fact that there isn’t much competition in the area. That is why they can arbitrarily price their subpar food with impunity. Many of us Nigerians are just making do with them because like I said, no competition. These people are unserious at best, unscrupulous at the worst. I placed an order for snails through Grubhub and was shocked silly to find only 2 snails in the order. 2 snails! That is $10 a piece. Snails are generally a delicacy, that is understood. But it is not a rare enough delicacy to cost $10 a piece. A pack of snails at the African market is $25! Palatable purposefully doesn't state the order quantity on the apps because if they did, literally no one would buy 2 snails for $20. So they are dishonest cheats. These aren’t even jumbo snails! 2 Regular or small sized snails for $20?? That is highway robbery. I’m truly fed up with this place and encourage others to not patronize them so that they can go out of business, and we can be rid of their nonsense. Their food isn’t good enough for this...

Palatable I hope someone is really reading your reviews and planning for adjustments, because as others have rightfully mentioned, quality and quantity has reduced drastically! There needs to be an overhaul of this place and your owner needs to strategize, else once competitors arrive, you will be headed for closure.

Firstly it takes forever to receive an order, we understand some of the food items may be cooked from the scratch but it shouldn’t take over 30 mins. Also, for the price of food, the portion of your swallow is embarrassing, feels like food meant for kids. Same as your meat- mostly hard and small. The two times I had the Amala, it wasn’t well done.

Finally, the idea of charging a 3% service fee for a takeout order is appalling- especially when you are providing a poor service at that. I have not seen others charge this fee. I was told this is a maintenance fee of your POS and it makes me wonder why you are passing your bank charges on your customers after already charging expensively...