Tamarai

I have a great experience spending my anniversary at Tamarai. The venue is modern and very well decorated. The service was good and the food even better!! Some people say that Tamarai is a bit dark, but it worked very well for this romantic ocasion. I recomend it.
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Jonh Clous
Overall rating
Food 10 | Service 8 | Atmosphere 9 | Value for money 8
Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Marginally ostentatious decor but was offset by the dim lighting. Overall quality of service could improve with a degree of finesse (quality and speed) but this factor was partially waived by the quality and presentation of the food. Individual flavours could be dissected out but the combination in a given dish did make for good consumption. The á la carte menu though brief was sufficient for the carnivorous diner but for vegetarians, may seem a little limited. As an Oriental, I could not justify the cost of certain dishes, especially the small plates ! I would suggest you raid the piggy bank to dine at Tamarai unless they are advertising a special offer (like now). I would probably go back to Tamarai for a drink but not so enthralled about the food.
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Overall rating
Food 5 | Service 5 | Atmosphere 5 | Value for money 5
Friday, May 09, 2008

I cannot stress how uterly disgusted i was with the level of service by both staff and more suprisingly the Manager at this very overpriced restaurant. Firstly our waiter was insistant on our ordering both our starters and main dish straight away having only given us two minutes to consider the menu. The menu itself offered very little. Our waiter came over to our table to clear our starters away whilst i was still eating. The restaurant turns into a club later in the evening. My friends and i had ordered a round of drinks and on two occassions our glasses were cleared away when they were still half full. We complained to a member of staff who seemed completely uninterested and asked to speak to the Manager. The Manager again offered no apology, dismissed our complaint and when we asked his name in order to make a formal written complaint refused to give his name. We carried on with the rest of our eveing and i was even more appauled to later see another member of staff again clear away a half full glass from another table without checking with diners.
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Varsha Vekaria
Overall rating
Food 3 | Service 0 | Atmosphere 3 | Value for money 1
Saturday, April 26, 2008

Beautiful inside-lush, cosy interior with dark purples and velvet...gorgeous cocktails and fab jazz band but food was a little disappointing but would def visit again to drink at the bar!
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patsy
Overall rating
Food 4 | Service 6 | Atmosphere 9 | Value for money 3
Wednesday, December 19, 2007

A trendy but very overpriced restaurant. After a poor reception, the service did not improve. Starters were good, but the main course lacked substance and was generally disapointing. For the price per head, there are lots of better choices nearby. I would not recommend this place for dining, unless you would like your dessert after being requested to pay the bill.
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Rick
Overall rating
Food 5 | Service 1 | Atmosphere 7 | Value for money 3
Saturday, December 01, 2007

The food is excellent, especially for vegetarians. Pricey, but worth it for a special occasion. Is quite dark inside, black furnishings etc, but looks trendy as you walk in. At weekends turns into a bar/club with DJ's so thje music gets louder from 1030pm. Fairly young crowd. Worth a try at least once.
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Overall rating
Food 9 | Service 6 | Atmosphere 8 | Value for money 7
Thursday, November 22, 2007

Upside: Excellent for taking a date - very romantic lighting. Went there for an early dinner before going to the theatre (Nov 07). The place was empty when we arrived (5.25) and was starting to fill up by the time we left at 7.35. We were all very impressed with the food. Service was good - attentive table service and about right for the money.

Downside: Disappointed with the deserts as they were extremely overpriced. They tasted amazing but the portions were tiny although the presentation was excellent.
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Rachel Stark
Overall rating
Food 10 | Service 8 | Atmosphere 6 | Value for money 5
Monday, November 19, 2007

Oh where to begin.... I booked a table in advance for 9 people for last Saturday evening for my brothers birthday party. We then had an extra guest which i called to add to the table 3 hours before we arrived.

The venue does look like a nightclub that has had a few tables and cushions put in it - it doesn't look quite finished. A faux spotlighted ceiling wouldn't go amiss and the removal of chewing gum on the chairs. There was also no loo paper in the toilets.

We had to have a set menu as we had over 8 guests attending but was told on arrival that people who have set menus's only get the table for 2 hours and then you have to leave as the next sitting will arrive, apart from the fact that the restaurant was half empty I thought that this was absurd as should you be less than 8 (and paying less money) you are able to keep your table for longer. When I complained about the fact that nobody had mentioned this to me even after exchange of several emails when booking, in fairness to Tamarai they did tell me that they would move us to a seated area if we wanted to stay and drink after dinner.

We sat at the table for some 30mins before anyone came to take our drink order and so we got up and ordered our drinks from the bar. When we did finally manage to get our wine and water order in we had to pour it ourselves throughout the evening as we didn't have an assigned waiter to our table.

Our first course arrived before we all had anough plates and cutlery on the table so some of us had to wait before starting the first course. Also the chef hadn't been infomred that there was one extra person at the table, so that poor guest had to eat their starter when everyone else had finished.

The second course was served before the dirty first course plated had been taken away and then there was a mad fumble of waiters trying to pick up the dirty plates whilst putting doen the dishes of food. The waiters also refused to bend over the other side of the table meaning that the guests had to handle the hot plates to their place setting.

I tried to give them the benefit of thinking they may have been short staffed for the evening, however i did notice a lot of there staff standing around near the bar area and when I did try and call them over for service, the English language wasn't there strong point.

Dessert came some 25 minutes after the second course had been cleared away, again without any plates or cutlery.

We weren't offered any tea or coffee, which may have been lucky as they could have expected us to drink out directly out of the tea pots!

At the end we decided not to take up their offer of seating us in another area to continue our evening there!

Overall, the food was good but not outstanding, there is little or no service at all, which reflects badly in the amount of money that is charged for the food!

I am happy to pay that amount if the service had even been normal, I do think that they have some balls to even put the compulsary 12.5% service charge on top of your bill, which we did toy with idea of contesting but all decided that we would never go back again instead.
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Charmaine
Overall rating
Food 7 | Service 0 | Atmosphere 2 | Value for money 2
Monday, November 12, 2007

I review restaurants for a newspaper in a major Southern city, and I speak from my own experience when I say that it takes much more than one bad review to hurt the business at any restaurant. To say that a bad review can hurt, or close a restaurant, also presumes the opposite--that a good review can "make" a restaurant. If this were true, I and every other restaurant critic would have tremendous power to "seed' our cities with exactly the type of restaurants we personally prefer. I was staying in London for the week end and my friend took me to Tamarai. I was more than disappointed with the service the manager could find our reservation we had to wait an hour to get a table and the food was rather average the wine choice was rather short...

And the music very loud making any conversation impossible
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Bonnie Boots
Overall rating
Food 0 | Service 0 | Atmosphere 0 | Value for money 0
Sunday, November 11, 2007

I went to Tamarai for lunch last month and was blown away by the quality of the food. The Dim Sum selection for lunch gives you a generous taste of 5-6 dishes and it is ample. I have since been there at least twice a week and it just gets better. The best was when we went this week on Tuesday and got 50% off with the Tamarai privilege card - worth asking for one.
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James
Overall rating
Food 9 | Service 8 | Atmosphere 9 | Value for money 9
Sunday, November 11, 2007