Bam-Bou

Eating here was an awful experience. We had booked for 9 and were sat down at 9.30. The waitress tried to take our order immediately and was impatient and rude when we asked her to explain the menu. She then ignored us for 45 mins and when we finally order a lot of thing on the menu were not longer available. The bottle of red wine was very cold and out of 3 dishes ordered she managed to get one of them wrong. Do not go here unless you want rude service and overpriced food.
Comment on this reader review

Lisa
Overall rating
Food 5 | Service 0 | Atmosphere 4 | Value for money 1
Saturday, February 10, 2007

What a place. We booked on a saturday night. We requested to eat in the main restaurant and on arrival was asked if we wanted to eat straight away or have a drink in the bar. So we decided to have a drink first. The drinks menu was great. We were then takent to our table. Some of our party were not used to spicy food and asked our waitress for assistance. She was great. Explaning the different dishes. The food when arrived was lovely, I am a vegetarian so could not engjoy the lovely sticky ribs one of the party had! My vegetaridan started and main course was very tastey. The waitress was helpful withour being on our shoulder all the time.

When the bill arrived they had added a service charge on and as there were only three of us we wanted it removed. It was taken off straight away, no problem. I really was a lovely place to go the atmosphere was fantistic. The staff great and the food wonderful. Will def go again when I am in London.
Comment on this reader review

Ursula Tucker
Overall rating
Food 8 | Service 9 | Atmosphere 8 | Value for money 9
Sunday, January 28, 2007

What a place. We booked on a saturday night. We requested to eat in the main restaurant and on arrival was asked if we wanted to eat straight away or have a drink in the bar. So we decided to have a drink first. The drinks menu was great. We were then takent to our table. Some of our party were not used to spicy food and asked our waitress for assistance. She was great. Explaning the different dishes. The food when arrived was lovely, I am a vegetarian so could not engjoy the lovely sticky ribs one of the party had! My vegetaridan started and main course was very tastey. The waitress was helpful withour being on our shoulder all the time.

When the bill arrived they had added a service charge on and as there were only three of us we wanted it removed. It was taken off straight away, no problem. I really was a lovely place to go the atmosphere was fantistic. The staff great and the food wonderful. Will def go again when I am in London.
Comment on this reader review

Ursula Tucker
Overall rating
Food 8 | Service 9 | Atmosphere 8 | Value for money 9
Sunday, January 28, 2007

Interesting menu, good food, pleasant service. Appalling and unethical practise of using the service charge to pay staff wages. A request to have the service charge removed was at first met with a no from the manager, via a water. On my insistence it was removed. It was however made clear that any shortfall would be taken from the waiters on duty that night on the particular floor. The manager admits to paying below the minimum wage, agreed it was unethical but said (and sadly he is correct) that that was the way it was done in London restaurants.

If you are thinking of eating at Bam Bou enjoy the food and atmosphere but please question the service charge and give it to the staff in cash. Even though there is a high possibility it will be recouped from them via a wages deduction.

Alternatively there are still many restaurants who run their tronc correctly so go to one of these instead.
Comment on this reader review

Mike McGraw
Overall rating
Food 7 | Service 8 | Atmosphere 6 | Value for money 5
Wednesday, October 25, 2006

Went there with five friends and was very impressed with the service and atmosphere however, we ordered 3 main dishes to share and 2 starters and we were still not full. Portions are not very generous.

But with 5 cocktails, main course and dessert, £25 per head was definitely worth it.
Comment on this reader review

Ash
Overall rating
Food 8 | Service 8 | Atmosphere 8 | Value for money 6
Sunday, October 08, 2006

Very disappointed. We went to Bambou for a celebration dinner after a very special family event in London. They clearly didn't want the booking as we were a larger party than most other tables which had just twos or threes. I booked the previous day but I was rung up several hours before to check we still wanted the booking! We were not exactly made to feel welcome and felt very pressured from start to finish. Their only concern was to get as many sittings in as possible and get us out as fast as possible. The waiters pressured us to the point of rudeness, as 2 of our party were unavoidably late in arriving, and we didn't want to order in advance, asking us 3 times to order using the excuse that their kitchen wanted to get on with the meal because we were a large number. We were told to be out of the restaurant by 8.30 giving us less than 2 hours to eat a 3 course meal and coffee. I certainly expect much better treatment from a restaurant with such an address. In fact, that is the only good thing about it. The food was ok but the evening was spoilt by the attitude of the staff. I would not go again. There are much better restaurants around at that price who actually WANT your business! They clearly don't care if you return or not. They must have so many people waiting to dine there that they don't have to care! Clearly, they don't give a stuff about their customers.
Comment on this reader review

Ann
Overall rating
Food 5 | Service 0 | Atmosphere 2 | Value for money 2
Thursday, September 07, 2006

Very disappointed. We went to Bambou for a celebration dinner after a very special family event in London. They clearly didn't want the booking as we were a larger party than most other tables, which had just twos or threes. I booked the previous day but I was rung up several hours before to check we still wanted the booking! We were not exactly made to feel welcome and felt very pressured from start to finish. Their only concern was to get as many sittings in as possible and get us out as fast as possible. The waiters pressured us to the point of rudeness as 2 of our party were unavoidably late in arriving, and we didn't want to order in advance, asking us 3 times to order using the excuse that their kitchen wanted to get on with the meal because we were a large number. We were told to be out of the restaurant by 8.30 giving us less than 2 hours to eat a 3 course meal and coffee. I certainly expect much better treatment from a restaurant with such an address. In fact that is the only good thing about it. The food was ok but the evening was spoilt by the attitude of the staff. I would not go again. There are much better restaurants around at that price who actually WANT your business! They clearly don't care if you return or not. They must have so many people waiting to dine there that they don't have to care! Clearly, they don't give a stuff about their customers.
Comment on this reader review

Ann (from Surrey) - View all reviews by this user
Overall rating
Food 5 | Service 0 | Atmosphere 3 | Value for money 1
Friday, September 01, 2006

I went to Bam-Bou recently on a first date, and what an excellent choice of venue! The food was delicious - I especially loved the prawn dumplings starter. The service was good - although one waitress did need prompting once to bring our wine to the table. The terrace is great for al fresco dining on summer evenings. Overall, very happy with my visit to Bam-Bou. I will definatly be back
Comment on this reader review

T
Overall rating
Food 8 | Service 8 | Atmosphere 8 | Value for money 8
Friday, August 11, 2006

I had dinner at Bam-Bou last night (Tuesday) with a friend who was visiting from the US. I was extremely disappointed as I have been wanting to try this restaurant for some time now and it just didn't live up to my expectations. I had been to the bar on the 4th floor on numerous occassions and always had great drinks and food. It started going downhill with our waiter who proved to be quite useless and was hardly able to explain the menu or suggest a wine... not to mention the fact that he was quite rude and aloof for no apparent reason. The starters we ordered "just ran out", which was frustrating. As an alternative we went with the prawn dumplings and these turned out to be quite tasty. The main course was a let down as the peppered beef lacked flavor and was simply not good. The sea bass however wasn't too bad so that helped to make up for this. Overall it just didn't have much of a wow factor. While some of our dishes were decent the food on the whole was sub-par. Furthermore, ending up with the creepy looking rude waiter when everyone else seemed to be much more friendly was annoying...
Comment on this reader review

Monica
Overall rating
Food 4 | Service 0 | Atmosphere 7 | Value for money 2
Wednesday, August 02, 2006

I went to Bam-Bou last night and the first thing that struck me was that it needed a lick of paint, which I found disappointing. Having said that the food was good, the waiting staff seemed nice and our party did have a fun evening. But for the amount we spent this restaurant did lack the wow factor and I think that this was down to the scruffy décor.
Comment on this reader review

Overall rating
Food 7 | Service 6 | Atmosphere 5 | Value for money 5
Thursday, July 13, 2006