I've been to Tamarai twice this year and had a great time, both times. The 1st was just with my partner and I was very impressed with the venue, and particularly the food and drinks. The staff were very nice too. I was so impressed (and it was so nice to be that impressed) that I invited a group of friends there for another meal a few weeks later. Since then I've been out of the country all summer but was looking forward to coming and eating there again.

Unfortunately, as things stand right now, that won't be the case. One of my friends who I brought with me the 2nd time, was also impressed when she came that time. So much so that she booked a meal on 20th August for her and another friend. When I came back to London recently I suggested she & I return to Tamarai but she said “never again” so naturally I wanted to know why.

She recounted her experience of the 20th August and being heavily involved in customer service, frankly I'm shocked. I won't go into all of the details but it seems the meal started well enough but later on they ordered more drinks with their meal and this took a while to come. When they did, the waitress managed to spill her drink on her so that it completely soaked her clothes she was wearing. It's a restaurant, these things happen from time to time. In my experience of such matters, the restaurant usually bends over backwards to make things right, especially the nicer establishments. What happened from then on was far from that and she and her friend ended up leaving the restaurant furious by the way it was handled. The restaurant tried to charge for the drink they spilled, nothing in particular was done to try and appease them, and when they complained about the service and the way it was handled they were made to feel even worse by the restaurant manager that night (this may even be you, they didn't provide me their name). At the very, very least I'd have expected the manager to offer to pay for dry cleaning without prompting. But they tried to… More