Dabbawal Jesmond Reviews Summary

Food Quality

Pros:

• "Honestly free up some time and enjoy the best food in Jesmond => Newcastle. Great food, great staff and service, great locations/deco, THE BEST."
• "Fantastic meal, superb selection, tried starters that we had never had before and they were wonderful, main courses really tasty, full of flavour, certainly will be back."
• "Simply put, this is the best Indian food we've ever eaten."
• "Amazing authentic street style Indian food. Best I've had at any price."
• "Absolutely delicious Indian food."
• "Amazing food nicest Indian food I have eaten and I've eaten in a lot places including in India!! So tasty and fresh."
• "The chicken dishes were delicious."

Cons:

• "Ordered a Chicken Makhani. Got served a brown cinnamon sauce with chicken. All I could taste was cinnamon."
• "The texture of the sauces felt unnatural and the taste very sweet, ill seasoned."
• "Food is good but portions are very small compared to the prices."
• "Horrible food and service - tried their biriyani and it was very spicy with no flavor at all."
• "Taste was below average Tikka Masala was made too sweet, Dal makhni on the other hand was flavourless."
• "Didn't have very authentic experience."
• "Food was average and I feel sad in saying this as we went to Dabbawal in town pre COVID and it was fantastic."

Service

Pros:

• "Great customer service, seated immediately without a reservation."
• "Ellie and the rest of the staff took such great care of us."
• "Service were friendly and happy to help with all requests."
• "Very friendly staff with good service."
• "Staff very attentive."
• "Staff were really friendly and attentive when it came to my friends food allergies."
• "Staff are wonderful. Polite and helpful."

Cons:

• "The service was ok but not personal."
• "Good friendly service but a bit patchy the requested tap water coming after a couple of requests."
• "Alongside the service was quite slow I had to wait a lot and even after that the food wasn’t properly cooked."
• "Service tonight was a little slow and it took a while for the booking to be acknowledged."
• "Very good food but during our after dinner drinks we were approached 3 times hinting for us to leave."
• "Slow service for initial drinks order."
• "Horrible staff the two girls in the till, had to walk out ruined our date."

Atmosphere & Ambience

Pros:

• "I visited New castle in the month of June for 2 nights break. I stayed in Jesmond so I googled this restaurant beforehand and visited on the first day of my visit for lunch and was really surprised with the taste, ambience and the feel."
• "Nine of us had a bottomless brunch in the private garden room, we loved the space, feeling of outdoors whilst staying cosy!"
• "The building is well decorated and the atmosphere is good."
• "First class service Lovely outside surroundings, Staff very welcoming and attentive."
• "The place of restaurant is beautiful, it get a nature light, and there are variety of table to dine."
• "Doesn’t look much from the outside but a surprise when you get inside."
• "Great Resturant hidden in Jesmond, full of nice charm and character."

Cons:

• "Great food as always but it's always been a difficult restaurant whoever has used it because of the acoustic."
• "The management have created a lovely setting but the noise made it difficult to hear the conversation at the table."
• "Personal issue was lighting in the venue. Was generally quite dark."
• "One thing to note is that it was very busy which caused the inside to be quite loud."
• "Also it was really loud and I had a headache ☹️."
• "Very busy and a lot of people make a lot of noise, not helped by the hard wall surfaces."
• "Was difficult to see the menu for an old person like me as we were sitting near the back under the neon sign."

Value for Money

Pros:

• "Location, service, ambience, food, value for money. Difficult to fault."
• "Good value for money."
• "Great value for money."
• "Price wise a little expensive, but the portions were generous enough and the food was excellent."
• "The price is very reasonable."
• "Not even that expensive either. Definitely recommend to all."
• "Great atmosphere and excellent food at a very reasonable price."

Cons:

• "We left thinking the food was vastly overpriced."
• "Portions are really quite small for the prices. Not sure if id return."
• "A little more expensive than average but worth the extra."
• "Not too expensive unless you're tricked into ordering poppadoms and don't notice that they are 85p each and the dips are £6."
• "Slightly pricy but good portions. Lovely and authentic."
• "If you want to spoil your evening, eat in a very crowded, noisy and unethical place, be charged for stuff you have not eaten and then have to prove/ explain you have been charged wrong.. Dabbawal is the place I highly recommend."
• "Be warned if they offer you poppadoms when you order your drinks they charge you for not only the poppadoms but also the dips!!"

Staff Conduct

Pros:

• "Very friendly staff with good service."
• "Staff very attentive."
• "Staff were really friendly and attentive when it came to my friends food allergies."
• "Staff are wonderful. Polite and helpful."
• "Fabulous setting too great staff fabulous menu."
• "Fabulous taste of south indian cousine, served by very nice service staff!"
• "Staff were amazing even though it was very busy."

Cons:

• "Very rude staff food are very small portions."
• "unethical staff. Giri is very rude and shouldn't be working here."
• "It's worth going for delicious food, however staff is treated very poorly by the owner, don't bother to tip as well since it's taken by the business and the staff doesn't get a single pound from that."
• "The server informed me that they do not get to keep any of the tips."
• "I went to this place with my family and the staff was very rude, I asked them to turn the heating on a lot of times but no one bothered and I had a 2 month old baby with me as well."
• "Horrible staff the two girls in the till, had to walk out ruined our date."
• "Manager was a miserable git otherwise 5 stars."