Al Ameer — Restaurant in Dearborn

I visited AL-AMEER after a long period may be after 3 years. I had very poor experience with their service 3 years ago and I stopped going there. Yesterday was Eid and my family insisted to go to AMEER. I thought too that it was one time service issue so we can go and visit this restaurant again AND give it another chance. Waitress was very active to place the order. She stopped by around 3 times in 5 minutes to make our decision and place the order. We placed order for several dishes. Our orders was worth $140.00. 1 – We ordered lentil soup with almost all of our dishes. They didn’t deliver the soup until we were almost done eating our meal. Soup in any other restaurant is always served at the first place BUT may be AMEER has a different tradition, they intend to serve soup at the end. 2 – They brought all our food at once BUT no bread. We had to wait for the bread for almost 5 minutes while food sitting on table. I don’t know why they brought all the food upfront when bread was not ready. Half of the food was already cold by the time we received their food. 3 - We were 8 people and they brought 6 pcs of bread in first place, I had to call different waitress for more bread. We had to wait again 5 minutes for 6 pcs of bread. We didn’t enjoy our food at all as we were getting interrupted by lack of the bread in between. I had to go personally to their front counter 2 times and request for more bread. I was planning to leave the place but family insisted to let it go. 4 – Waitress who took the order and brought our meal in the first place disappeared totally to check back on us. She will go to tables but avoided eye contact with us totally, same was with other customer service employees. They will not look at you or give you any attention unless you call them repeatedly or go to the main counter. 5 – They charged us 18% service charge for total of 8 people and another 3.3% for using the credit card. I had to pay 18% service charge for 0% service. They make you pay for using the credit card too. 6 – Food was OK, no exceptional food. It was already cold by the time we started eatilng. 7 – Waitress stopped by 4 times after she knew that we are close to finishing our meal, asking if we needed anything else. Our total bill came to around $179.00. We had to pay $41.00 additional for the service and for using the credit card. NOT RECOMMENDED AT ALL and WILL NEVER GO AGAIN FOR EXCEPTIONALLY...

We really enjoyed the food, almost every item was great. The only objection I have is with tipping. So, first of all I am all for tipping. I think for good customer service waiters really deserve to be tipped. But this is totally arbitrary and depends absolutely on the customers' discretion. So here's what happened. We eat our food and get the bill after we're done eating. The waiter gets the bill(iPad), my sister uses her card on their iPad to pay the bill, after bill was paid it prompts up tipping option. It shows tipping option starting from 18%. There was also custom tipping option. She selected it and put an amount which is roughly 15% of the bill(which was a good enough tip in our opinion). She finishes the transaction. And that could have been the end of story. But the waiter (who was standing in front of us the whole time during choosing tip option by the way) asks us if we were satisfied with the customer service or not. We said affirmatively, saying we were satisfied. Then he tells us "I am saying this because you chose a tip that is below the MINIMUM tipping level. But that's ok!" We were so dumbfounded with his answer, we couldn't even say anything to him. I have had the experience of eating in a bunch of dine-in restaurants in Michigan,but no restaurant waiter was as disrespectful as him! First of all there is no MINIMUM tipping level. We could've just eaten the food and left the place only paying the bill. But we saw you serving us very well and that was just token of appreciation for your service. You can't put a number to it and DEMAND that this is the MINIMUM tipping level. And, secondly you are not supposed to watch customers while paying the bill and tipping. You were outright rude with your statement about tipping and violated customer privacy during payment. No customer deserves to be treated like that. Although we were really satisfied with the food, we left the place...

Having eaten 3Xs at the EXCEPTIONAL location on Ford Rd, we decided to try this closer one. That was a BIG MISTAKE, since the only thing that was comparable was the food. We were seated by a very nice hostess who also brought plates and glasses. And then we sat there for 15 minutes unattended. Finally the 'server' came by with her electronic order machine and asked for our order. No water on the table, no napkins and utensils, no bread, nothing. She just asked for the order. We gave it and then asked for bread because she said nothing to us like I'll be bringing your utencil set ups and bread and sauce and water over. She just kinda stared at our empty table. So i asked for bread. She said it would be out. I watched as the large family gathering of about 50 people next to us who were getting excellent service was brought out 10 bread baskets of fresh bread 3 TIMES IN 30 MINUTES. Our server came back with water and a small salad that came with the meal and sauces, still no bread, no set ups. My wife had to walk to the hostess area to ask for utensils. Another 15 minutes go by, the server comes back with our meal, still no bread and i had to ask for it and more water for a 3RD TIME, to which i got a nasty look and was told it's coming. Finally after watching the center table eat 30 baskets of bread, we got ours halfway through our meal. Server NEVER CAME BACK TO CHECK ON US UNTIL WE WERE FINISHED.

The other Al Ameer is completely different. We sit down and within 5 minutes the table is freshly set, water utensils, bread, sauce, EVERYTHING ON THE TABLE before we ever have our coats off, and no matter how busy, EVERYONE IS TREATED BEAUTIFULLY. SERVICE AND FOOD AT THE FORD LOCATION ARE EXCEPTIONAL. I will NEVER go to this poorly run Warren location again. The food was very good as expected but much less was given for the money and the service we...