Atrocious service but very good main dishes

SUMMARY:+ve: Very good main dishes, chops and chicken and excellent biryani-ve: Worst service ever, portion sizes, seekh kebabsIt wasn't particularly busy yet when we got there, the waiter struggled to find our booking under my name on the list - even though it was right in front of him. A colleague, who he had then gone to get help from, also struggled - so I put them out of their misery and pointed it out. Having been seated, a waiter came later around to ask what drinks we'd like. Having heard Bhundu Khan bang on about their non-alcoholic cocktails on their website, we had all decided to order those from the large range on offer, only to be told by the waiter that the cocktail bar man had finished for the night - yet it was only 7pm on a Sunday!!I decided to go for the fresh juice instead, which was a separate item to the cartoned option in the menu - the waiter happily confessed that these were actually the same thing ie all from cartons. In the end I just ordered that along with jugs of lassi and water for all (incidentally all the soft drinks we ordered were forgotten and never came thanks to the skills of our waiter). The lassi clearly was an acquired taste and simply too authentic for me having been doused with rose water - Tayyabs lassi beats this hands down.We came to order our food and the waiter felt he was talented enough to remember all starters and main courses for eight people in his head, even though he couldn't even remember any of the menu item numbers - he probably realised the perils of his methods and ended up resorting to writing orders of each table on the back of old receipts. We ordered the mixed grill for starters, the lamb chops were delicious and the chicken was very succulent (better than Tayyabs) - however the Seekh Kebabs were a complete joke looking like twigs and probably not tasting much different from that.When the main courses came the waiter put them on the table and when asked which dishes were which so we could pass them onto the correctly, he didn't have a clue and couldn't recognise anything. His response was to call for the waiter who took our order. When he finally came over, he asked us for our table number - despite having no table numbers displayed anywhere and not ever being told it. We told him this while he was digging out the receipts in his pocket with all the orders. The extraordinary talents of our waiter came to fruition when we told him that the Haleem hadn't arrived. He was apologetic and offered to get it re-ordered - but by this time we wanted to spend as little at this shoddy organisation and just get out ASAP. To add to this, a bit later we noticed he'd forgotten to order another dish - and instead of these two missing dishes, we were given to random chicken dishes instead. Later on, we heard another group on the other side threaten not to pay due to the service they were getting, and notably highlighting his missing Haleem also - hmmmmmmm.....The Bundhu Khan Specials were very overrated - and so were their prices. The Bihar bhoti required a chainsaw to cut and were probably supplied by Wrigley's. The Parathas were nice - but not for £2 each!! The Lamb Biryani was excellent and the best I've had eating out in years - it was real lamb (not mutton) and was sublime. For any Biryani Connoisseurs here, it should really be called Lamb Pilau Biryani. Generally, the main dishes were very good and authentically spicy - though portions were tiny.Naturally after all the shenanigans, we felt we had better grill (excuse the pun) the bill for errors. Having found one, our now-beloved waiter went off to recalculate it - but having got back to his counter, he subsequently completely forgot us until we all got up and went to the counter 15mins later to remind him and pay up! To be fair, at least we were not charged for the random dishes.Also a point to add about the background music which was pop music!!PS Our waiter was the one who looks like the former Snooker Player (and was dressed like one!) Willie Thorne from the 80s

A User - 11/03/2009 | report this review