Taste of Nigeria — Restaurant in Houston

This review is long so read to the end! I was trying to refrain from writing this review because Taste of Nigeria has been my favorite African restaurant thus far, however, in the span of 1 month, I have experienced poor customer service TWICE. The customer service has gone DOWNHILL unfortunately. A month ago, 1/16/22, I came in to dine alone, and I sat myself per usual. Normally, at other restaurants a waiter seats you, but here you seat yourself. It took a waitress almost 10 minutes to tend to me (mind you it wasn’t that many people there). I knew what I wanted already when she asked if I needed a menu, and she said ok. She never asked what I wanted to drink and never brought water. 15-20 min passed and I had to call a male waiter over to bring me some water. At this time, another customer walked in and stood in the doorway for about 15 min, he then asked me if a waiter would tell him where to sit, I told the man “at this restaurant you seat yourself” which he proceeded to do. My food finally came out about 30 min later & it was cold! I ordered coconut rice and fish! The fish and stew was cold! I now called the waitress over and told her, and she assured me she would warm it up. At this time, that same stranger that walked in asked when his order would be taken. The waiter came back out with my fish (passing the guy up) and I told her the guy at the other table had been waiting to order. She placed my food on the table and tended to the guy. When I tried my food, the fish looked wet and appeared to have water around it! I didn’t not want to eat it, so I got up and paid for the food at the register and walked out. I had barely eaten . Now, fast forward to LAST NIGHT, 2/22/22, I went into this restaurant with a male friend because he had never been to this restaurant! It was his FIRST TIME HERE. We sat ourselves as I normally do when I am alone. One waitress came to take our order.& another brought bottles of water. I thought that they were going to have great customer service because they started off great. I ordered my usual coconut rice and my friend ordered rice with goat meat, etc. We waited for nearly 45 minutes only for the waitress to come out and say “there’s no more coconut rice, do you want something else, we have jellof, white rice, and friend rice” . Disappointed, I asked for fried rice. She returned a few min later and said “there’s no fried rice”, that the larger party sitting next to us, took all the food. I joked and told her to give us food for their table. Even though I was disappointed, I asked where my friend’s food was. She now said “they haven’t started on his food yet because we thought you were going to cancel!” EXCUSE ME???? We had been waiting for nearly an hour at that point! So I said “what do you mean they haven’t started on his food! We’ve been waiting, we are hungry!”. She then tried to lie and say “oh I think they did start.” At this point we got up to leave and I told the girl not to worry about our food. As we made our way to the door she ran towards us and said “WE MUST PAY FOR THE WATER”….what!?? I said what do you mean? We’ve been waiting there with no food and you’re telling us to pay for water we did not touch! I left mine on the table & my friend naturally picked up his bottle of water which she took back! THIS WAS A HORRIBLE EXPERIENCE AND I AM NEVER RETURNING!! This place lost a loyal customer!!!!!! HORRIBLE CUSTOMER SERVICE! I am so so disappointed in this...

As I am reading the reviews I see that others have experienced the same as I have. I have never really wrote reviews but this was the worst customer service I have experienced in a long time.

First off when placing the order over the phone that was the first Red flag it was a very unpleasant and a difficult call that should not have been. I ordered my food while I was 30min away and was told it would be ready in 30 min. I arrived and was told it was not ready but they advised me to pay and they would call me once it was ready I declined the paying part offer and went back in my car to wait. It was about 2 :00 pm and hadn’t received a call so decided to go back in and was told it would be 45 min wait I advised if I have to wait 45 min they can cancel order then was told they would check with chef and when she returned she said it would be 15 min. I went back to my car to wait 16 min exactly I came back nope still not ready I waited and waited. The host explained it takes time for the soup to cook. However I know I am not buying uncooked food and I advised her nicely I was told a time frame and it has been over 45 min and if they would have been honest and let me know it was not ready I could have easily ordered somewhere else . The host apologized and said sorry and agreed. However I still had to wait another 20 minutes. Then the host told me the food was ready now and I could pay and I kindly declined because there was no food there even though she said it was ready. So I waited again about another 8 min and she finally brought food out. As I was paying I had to be transferred to another machine to pay and she asked me if I wanted to leave a TIP 👀 I kindly pushed the NO TIP button and as I was leaving they apologized . My order was a $3 greens in a small container that had next to nothing in it .I also ordered a malt with Igusi with pounded yam. Flavoring was nice but the cow meat was so hard I couldn’t eat it and the pounded yam was dry. I hope that something can be done to make this a better experience for others but I will not ever be returning.I haven’t experienced bad customer service like this is a lonnnng time.

PS: While we were waiting in the car my husband went in to get a malt and he said when asking the host the price they mumbled to each other And weren’t even able to give him that until he checked out. The mumbling to each other part I don’t get it as they did the same with me like hello I am standing right here lol All this took place on...

I absolutely hate writing bad reviews on black businesses ----more so Africa owned businesses. And I hate to perpetuate the stereotypes african businesses have. Quite frankly, I would rather just not post and tell friends about my experience, but I was soo appalled by the service I was driven to write this review.

Let's start with the positive

1. The interior is nice and modernized in comparison to antiquated relics like Finger lickin. It has 2 flat screen TVs for entertainment.
2. Location is centrally located.
3. Their menu is pretty all-inclusive with your typical naija dishes.

Negative:

1. Being that this Taste of Nigeria is a sister restaurant to Cafe Abuja--- I was expecting impeccable service. I have frequented Cafe Abuja on numerous occasions and always have received excellent service from the servers. But at this restaurant----it wasnt the case. The waitress with pimples (or in grown hairs on her chin) was extremely rude. She made my party feel like an inconvenience, gave no eye contact---in fact she was looking to serve her non-black/african customers before serving us. We waited for almost 30 minutes before we actually were served....not including the time it took to actually receive the food. With the time it took to sit, wait to be served and wait for the food to come out---you would think they were slaughtering the cattle in the kitchen from scratch.

2. I think they are over priced in reference to their portion size. It was small. Bigger portion sizes are given at Cafe abuja.

3. Food was decent. Nothing impressive. It's not gonna be nothing like your mama's cooking.

4. To be frank, I would rather make the commute to cafe abuja or try out the new komchop restaurant because I won't come back here.

5. I don't know if the waitress didn't think we would tip...so she treated us like that...but she fulfilled that prophecy and I always tip at abuja cafe (shrug her loss). After all that insult....she had the audacity to inquire if she was getting a...