By: Rachel

Rachel — Wed, 22 Feb 2017 16:54:37 +0000

I have eaten at Friends of Flavours on many occasions, both in small and larger groups. The service can be a bit quirky but generally good & there is one fantastic waiter in particular. The food itself is amazing, its absolutely delicious!! & They have very nice wine too. I highly recommend this restaurant.

By: Jo

Jo — Fri, 26 Feb 2016 12:39:18 +0000

I went to this restaurant for dinner on a Thursday night. From outside it looked good, and he environment inside was very warming. Everything was clean, no complaints from that point…Apart from a glass of white wine that was warm (which I made it cooler by putting the ice from my water), and everything looked okay. Well, this was until the food arrived…! First we order some calamari.. The calamari wasn’t properly fried, which was a disappointment. I asked for the dipping sauce for the calamari which the waitress said they didn’t have it… Well, I could have still eaten it without the sauce, however they were soggy.
I still thought my linguine alla vongole was going to be nice. Oh my gosh, I couldn’t be more wrong… My boyfriend had linguine seafood which to be honest it was quiet tasty and it was a good portion. But the problems started with my linguine… I agree the linguine tasted good, but I only ate linguine because 80% of the clams (this is not an exaggeration) were closed. Obviously it is dangerous to open and eat a clam as they should open naturally when cooked. Even if not dangerous, it will be impossible to pick up a knife and open every clam, which by the way, were very small. So, as soon as I noticed that most of the clams were closed, I started taking them all (the closed ones) and put the them on the side plate. When the side plate was full of unopened clams I called the waitress and said this this was unacceptable. The waitress said sorry and took the plate with the unopened clams to the kitchen. I remained in the table with my half-eaten linguine with only a few clams in there. I expected that someone would come to me after removing the plate with the clams from my table. Unfortunately that did not happen. I kept eating my linguine (with no clams), and I due to the high level of dissatisfaction me and my partner decided to order the bill (the table hasn’t been cleaned by that point), and go to a different restaurant. When the bill arrived to the table we realised that instead of charging £10.95 for my linguine, they charged £7. I very rarely complaint when eating out, but this time the diner was just unacceptable. I could not accept any charge for a dish like that and for the fact that no one came back to me with an alternative…
The proper manner of dealing with this case will be removing the dish completely from the bill. I explained to the waitress that it was wrong charging anything for the dish and instead of resolving the situation she said “I am sorry you did not enjoy your night, however I am only charging £7. You should have complained in the beginning of the meal and we would have offered a new dish.” I could not believe in her works since I have actually called the waitress when my plate was still more than half full and complained about the clams. The waitress simply removed my clams away from the table and no one came to me after that. They just ignored me… And not to say that it took me some time to remove all the unopened clams from my dish… Again I explained to the waitress who handed our bill that this was poor customer service. Instead of trying to make us (customers) happy, she kept going on, arguing with us saying that the clams of my dish were like that because they were Italian (Seriously!?), and I could have opened them, and bla bla bla… She just didn’t stop arguing with us… By that point my boyfriend stand up, said just want to pay the bill, but she should stop arguing with the clients (in front of all other customers). Himself is a manager of a 5 star hotel, and he explained that he would never do what she was doing with customers… I also asked for the manager, and found out that there wasn’t a manager that night… How can a restaurant run without a manager or a supervisor around..?? Bad…
We paid the bill and we moved to a different restaurant, a really nice Sicilian pizzeria nearby, where we were very well welcomed. We told the staff about our horrible experience, and not they just laughed as they offered us for free (a big surprise), a full plate of seafood… amazing!! (And just to remember that the other restaurant refused to even remove the dish from our bill.. ) Well, we ended up eating the seafood, one pizza and 2 deserts from the Sicilian restaurant. If ‘Friends of Flavours’ would have been nicer, and more professional we probably would have stayed for desserts and coffee… but well, they thought £7 was worth it to make some customers unhappy… Well done!

By: Angela

Angela — Tue, 20 Oct 2015 21:11:12 +0000

Love friends of flavours. Try to come as much as possible. Keep up the good work. It’s always delicious food and super friendly.

Comments on: Penge’s Passion for Pasta: Friends of Flavours

By: Rachel

By: Jo

By: Angela