Pasha

Don't walk hungry down Palace Gate (Gloucester Road's continuation) because you will inevitably end up dining at Pasha. Officially the coolest place I have ever eaten badly, twice!

Don't order anything cold, unless you provide your own Sensodine dip. Don't eat bread or olives, because you will become cystic fibrotic. Don't order wine, because it's only meant to distract you from the main course. The main course: A massive bowl of boiled rice, with a massive knee on it. A knee. Like, a piece of bone. No meat, no muscle, no tendons, no ligaments, just..a knee. Mmm, nice!

Belly dancers super fit like there's no tomorrow. Well worth the £100 we paid.

Go in, have a drink, pull the dancers and get out. Just, for the love of god, don't eat there.
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Gabi Faja
2 Overall rating
Food 0 | Service 3 | Atmosphere 3 | Value for money 1
Tuesday, April 13, 2010

One of the worst dining experiences ever. Please AVOID!

My friend and I were lured inside by quite pretty entrance doors, interesting decor and tasty looking menu which you can view outside. We chose one of the set dinner menus (£35 per person). To begin with the table was wobbly and the staff made no attempt to fix it for us despite my friend nearly knocking things off the table onto his lap. The staff refused to serve us tap water (is it legal?) mumbling a long-winded explanation - something to do with their taps I think? Quite embarrasing.

The selection of starters we got included lukewarm and bland grilled meats (tiny portions-not enough for two) and very bland, ICY COLD dips that were probably taken out from a very low-temperature fridge seconds before serving. My friend struggled to eat them because of his over-sensitive teeth. This was accompanied by the most vile olives I've ever tried and stale bread.

The main course was even worse. My chicken tagine with olives, preserved lemons and potatoes was disgusting. The chicken was dry and tasted of tesco value range lemon dishwashing liquid; there were three olives (of the vile variety) in the tagine dish, and I did not find any preserved lemons (I might need an eye test, mind). The potatoes I simply could not eat - they tasted as if they were reheated at least three times, and I suspect they came from a tin. They tasted like nothing I tried before! How did they manage that???

My poor friend's main was supposed to be "slowly cooked lamb" but in fact it was just a pile of bones with bits of meat you could chew off if you were desperate, but trust me, the meat was not worth it - bland, very bland again and tasting of old, dried out sheep that probably spent its miserable albeit long life locked up in a dirty shed. He was actually served something that looked like a massive lamb knee - a rock hard, inedible bone on a bed of very dry and severly undercooked couscous. We joked about it loudly, with the waiting staff around our table, but this was not acknowledged and no apology was made. The "bone" main was accompanied by a bowl of very watery brown liquid tasting of nothing - not sure what that was - washing up water with cinammon sprinkle perhaps? On reflection, it might have been a special moroccan finger bowl (which you might need to rinse your fingers if you try to chew some meat off that bony main), with a ladle in it as a decorative element, which we uneducated, mistook for jus/gravy!

The dessert included another comic element. Well, I think it was some sort of traditional, moroccan "post-dinner hide and seek" game where the waiting staff try to seperate the diners and prevent them from seeing one another by placing a tall, tiered platter in the middle of the table. One of the rules of the game is that diners are not allowed to move the tiered platter to the side, and if, god forbid, poor ignorant souls try to move it, the platter is swiftly yet firmly moved back to the middle of the table by ever so attentive staff.

And what was on the said/sad platter? A handful of icy cold fruit - straight from their finest deep freezer again - with some stale nuts, and four small cubes of synthetic rose turkish delight. More like petit fours than a pudding if you ask me. The mint tea served with the petit fours pudding was very nice tough. Shame that there was not enough of it for two (we got 1 and 1/3 of a tiny glass each).

Finally, the next day I had to seek solace in drinking hot water with lemon and honey to soothe my soar throat. The music in the venue was so loud that we spent the evening shouting to one another across the miniscule table.

This moroccan delight set us back £100 (service charge and a small carafe of house red included).
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Anna Stanglewicz
0 Overall rating
Food 0 | Service 0 | Atmosphere 0 | Value for money 0
Sunday, April 11, 2010

The worse dining experience ever! We were a party of 5 and 1 baby. All our meals were cold when arrived and had to be sent back. They all got 'heated up' but 1 still came back colder than originally! Think they must have mistook the freezer for the oven!

All portion sizes were a joke...just about enough for my 7 month old!!! We were told we COULDN'T have tap water (which im sure is not allowed legally!) and had to therefore pay £4 for mineral water...which just came in a glass so no idea if it was tap water or not anyway!

The £15.95 lunch set is v. misleading.....when I booked I was told it was 2 starters and a main course each...when we arrived it had changed to 2 starters per table and a tiny main course each! Not enough for 5 people to share.

One of our 'precious' two starters didn't ever arrive and when we told the waiter we ended up with 5 waiters telling us that we had eaten it and kept describing it....(as though we could have forgotten what it looked like in amongst the bountiful amount of food that lay before us!!!)

We ended up cancelling one of the main courses after sending it back twice for being cold and stopping for a fabulous chinese takeaway on the way home! :-(

WOULD NEVER RECOMMEND THIS PLACE........THE BIGGEST RIP OFF RESTAURANT IN LONDON !!!
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Claire Barnett
0 Overall rating
Food 0 | Service 0 | Atmosphere 1 | Value for money 0
Monday, March 15, 2010

Having eaten here I can say that it was the worst dining experence I have ever had in over 40 years of spending hard earned cash in resturants.

The food was mediocre when it arrived, as well as being cold. One starter never arrived although the manager was adament it had.

This is a place to be avoided as not only is it bad value for money the quantiy and quality of the food leaves a lot to be desired.
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Mike Barnett
0 Overall rating
Food 0 | Service 0 | Atmosphere 0 | Value for money 0
Monday, March 15, 2010

i went there with my girlfriend and i promised myself never ever go back that place because 1. since we entered the place no one at the door we had to wait 2. as we sat down tables were wobbling staff did not give a damn 3. food was nightmare way overpriced specially lamb main course which cost 40 pounds has not taste at all just too bad with couscous! 4. wine and water left not poured whole evening and red wine was so cold they told that wine story was cold 5. music was so load could not even talk to each other. 6. place was freezing maybe plus 3 or 4 in the restaurant!!!! 7. belly dancing show came but only one dancer for whole place so we just saw here 30 seconds but music stayed louder for bout 20 min was torturing!!!! 8 when we left our umbrella was disappeared and we had to run in rain!!! this place is best place for ruining romantic evening !!
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Tom
2 Overall rating
Food 2 | Service 3 | Atmosphere 4 | Value for money 0
Thursday, January 07, 2010

We went here for a friends 21st, the staff were so rude and unhelpful. The food was bland and the portions were so small. Shisha wasn't great, and when we asked a member of staff for assistance they rudely walked away. Over priced, and looks nothing like it does on the site! over hyped, very very over hyped.. avoid at all costs.
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2 Overall rating
Food 1 | Service 0 | Atmosphere 6 | Value for money 2
Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Went to Pasha last week for my best friends birthday and we had a fantastic

time. Don't know if the previous two reviewers went on an off-night but our service was excellent and very friendly and the food was a plentyful.

Particularly enjoyed the lamb main course, as it was the highlight of the table and everyone seemed to love it. It's very authentic morrocan to the point that they even had a lot of north african wines on their list. Decor is very stunning and atmosphere were brilliant and the belly dancers added a nice touch too.

They even placed a sparkler in my friends dessert which made the night that more special. Well worth a visit and if it's just for the very good looking and charming american guy. Will most definitely come back
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Kayar Patel - View all reviews by this user
9 Overall rating
Food 9 | Service 10 | Atmosphere 9 | Value for money 8
Sunday, October 04, 2009

Overpriced and mediocre food - Unacceptable behaviour from the manager and the staff.

We were a party of seven having dinner in this apparently lovely Moroccan place... and ended up not wanting to ever come back.

The decor is nice indeed but the food is unfortunately mediocre and overpriced. We ended up paying over 50 pounds per person having ordered a set menu and having drunk water....

When the bill came we commented about it in both English and French to agree that it was overpriced for what we experienced and while chatting amongst us before getting ready to leave the manager came to one of us and started complaining about our behaviour to the staff arguing that they actually spoke French as well. We were also told that we would be unwelcomed if we ever came back.

Anyway to make the long story short, we were basically treated as if we had been insulting them the whole night - which of course is not the case otherwise I would not be wasting my time writing this review - and although we were not sure whether we would give the place a second chance, that incident made our decision easier.

There are plenty of nice places in London so I honestly believe this one is not worth going to.
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Alex - View all reviews by this user
4 Overall rating
Food 3 | Service 3 | Atmosphere 7 | Value for money 3
Sunday, October 04, 2009

I’m afraid I agree with the previous poster. I celebrated by 30th birthday party here a couple of months ago and have to say it wasn’t a great experience.

Our issues were: Whilst eating our main meal, my birthday cake was brought out. I had a mouth full of lamb whilst the cake was brought out, and I had to move my plate to the side so the cake could be put in front of me. Everyone else also had a mouth full of food. Also, whilst eating our main meal, the deserts were also brought out and placed on the table.

I still hadn't finished my main meal, and the waitress started to decrumb the table. Once again, the table had to lift their plates and move their glasses. We were kicked off our table, so the next reservation could be seated. My parter was not advised of this at the time of booking.

We were also placed upstairs which is very light and lacked atmosphere. If you go to this restaurant, ask for a table downstairs where there is more ambiance.

Considering we spent £1300 in 2 hours, I believe the above is unacceptable service. The bill was split amongst the guests, and it was extremely embarrassing having to ask them for £110 a head. A few of my guests commented on how poor the service was. Not one to complain, we raised these issues with management. We never heard back from them, and they made no attempt to sweeten things.
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3 Overall rating
Food 7 | Service 1 | Atmosphere 4 | Value for money 1
Friday, September 25, 2009

This restaurant promises much, with impressive, opulent decor generating a distinctive Moroccan atmosphere. Unfortunately, it heads downhill from here, as service varies from the enthusiastic to the negligent; and the food, if and when it arrives, is unremarkable and overpriced. Starters were forgotten, wine stayed unpoured and the mains were ok but extremely expensive (£20 for chicken thigh, mutton neck and a sausage? £18 for a lamb kebab anyone?). Overall, you can get far more for your money elsewhere, and specifically, a better North African experience is available in Hammersmith - for less than half the price, and where you're made to feel welcome.
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5 Overall rating
Food 6 | Service 4 | Atmosphere 6 | Value for money 3
Wednesday, August 12, 2009