Kibkom North Cyprus Forum

supposed to open Saturday. Any comments although realise early days.

Has it opened? Not see any PR etc

I believe the opening night was by invitation only!

Looking forward to the first reviews, as most of the Chinese here charge a fortune for little on the plate.

Where is it?

according to another post


I believe the Mandarin Oriental is opening on 31st January. Will be up the hill past Ackmenya!! in Alsancak. Owned by David from "Wines of the World"in Catalkoy and Alsancak.

"Will be up the hill past Ackmenya!!"
You've gone too far. It's between the Corner Bar and Acmenya.

[quote="cambridge"]supposed to open Saturday. Any comments although realise early days.[/quote





The opening went much the same way as many openings here in Cyprus which was not very well !

When you bring foreign chefs in from another country and you interview them online they will tell you everything you wish to hear and much more,but by then

once they are here and you have spent lots of money on making work permits and everything else that goes with employing imported workers and it is too late to change anything.

You only get to find out on the opening as to just how good your staff really are and if they all can work together.

In my case they did not all work together and created many problems for each other and the problems started with the waitresses which in turn made problems for the chefs

and then a domino effect.

Now i have closed for 1 week so they can all get their act together and i shall be inviting the same customers back on Saturday 7th February

for a free evening and we shall then see if the staff have got there act together,if not they will be on the next plane home.

Nice to hear an honest summary from you. If only more people could tell it like it is!
Good luck next Saturday.

Refreshing to see such honesty from the owners. That in itself would want me to give it a try, all the other restaurants should lead by your example! Good luck, I hope you succeed.

You can PM me if you so wish to attend and offer my honest opinion. (cheeky)

So sorry to hear that.But it would be good to hear form someone who went who might have a different perspective. I am SOOO sorry for you trying to do everything the right way round and it backfired. So many places do not get work permits etc, so I do hope that this week will enable them to bond together and work as a team.


Really do appreciate your honesty and keep us posted as to how everything is going and I am sure more people will come in - especially in view of your blatant transparency. Very refreshing in his day and age.

Marion no different perspective but to say staff are lovely David is lovely restaurant is lovely. Menu variety is great and whatever happened we had every intention of going back! Great fun with friends and great wines.

Honesty is the best policy and how nice to see it in practice. I wish you all the best for your restaurant and will be sure to pay a visit when we are over from Esentepe.

And to David - if you get really desperate I see there is a pub you know in Cilcnenin for sale!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Good luck David, Hope it works out for you, Shall I send "Little Boy " to sort the staff out? Hope to see you soon.

Marions wrote:And to David - if you get really desperate I see there is a pub you know in Cilcnenin for sale!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Dont think i could go back to running a pub in a sleepy village marion


Im sure little boy would love the scrap bones from the spare ribs Owl lady !!


UPDATE ON THE RESTAURANT STAFF

Since Saturday we have had almost 11 hours of pep talk and having the waitresses get to grips with the understanding of ,Starters,main course and desserts and understanding that they cannot put 20 or more orders under the noses of the chefs which include starters mains and desserts all together.

Now they understand which order the foods should be served and now have created a seating plan for them self! Also they now understand an empty glass or almost empty glass means they should ask the customer would they like another drink and they understand that it is not acceptable for a customer to have to wait 20mins or more for a drink that was ordered,etc etc,my list is almost endless.

No chef can begin to cook for 30 or more customers who are mostly seated at the same time and all want to order at the same time,this was one of the waitresses mistakes,but only 1 of a catalogue of mistakes that they made.

Saturday they feel they will be ready.

Luckily for me i understood my customers feelings,it was DeJaVu and unacceptable to me , id been in their shoes before on this island at opening nights at other venues,in my wildest dreams i never thought the same would happen to me on my opening night .

By Friday i shall know how confident i feel !

Im told it can only get better , heres to those days

Serious staff training is the name of the game Good luck.

Its hard to believe what I am reading however, my best wishes go out to you and your staff.

Were they experienced staff? If so whats wrong with them?

Deniz1 wrote:Were they experienced staff? If so whats wrong with them?

They tell you they are experienced but with hindsight hotel waitresses and restaurant waitresses are very different now i come to understand.

Very true having been a restaurant owner in the long ago some waiting staff didnt have a clue!

No comparison Cilcennin and Alsancak, it is true, but of course, it may well present problems not encountered in a sleepy Welsh village. But it osunds as if you are now well on the way to perfection.

Good luck with it all.

Pob bendith arnoch chi !!! (you may well need it!)

Hi David. Dare I ask how did it go on Saturday?

Owl Lady wrote:Hi David. Dare I ask how did it go on Saturday?

Of course you Dare ask

From what i saw and the review on our facebook page all went fine.

The full house seemed very happy.

Like any new business,there is still room for improvement in my opinion.

In comparison with many other eating places id say were not doing so bad.

You are only as good as your staff,and we will strive to find the best staff for our restaurant. Finding the right staff on devils island now i know to be very difficult !

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Mandarin ... =bookmarks

This restaurant has been open now for about 3 weeks - so I thought it was time to try it! It is beautifully decorated and the tables are well spaced out. The wine, as you would expect, is very good. Now to the food;

We were quite a large table but there were several mistakes made and the wrong dishes delivered to the table - in one instance a non meat eater ordered pad thai noodles with tofu and received it with chicken - then had this replaced fairly quickly with noodles in soy sauce with veg but no tofu. Unfortunately this resulted in some people eating up to an hour before other people had even received their food. In the main the starters were OK and the sushi in particular was very good.

Maybe the teething problems are going on a long time but I really hope they sort it out as it would be a really nice addition to the restaurants at this end.

Honey wrote:This restaurant has been open now for about 3 weeks - so I thought it was time to try it! It is beautifully decorated and the tables are well spaced out. The wine, as you would expect, is very good. Now to the food;

We were quite a large table but there were several mistakes made and the wrong dishes delivered to the table - in one instance a non meat eater ordered pad thai noodles with tofu and received it with chicken - then had this replaced fairly quickly with noodles in soy sauce with veg but no tofu. Unfortunately this resulted in some people eating up to an hour before other people had even received their food. In the main the starters were OK and the sushi in particular was very good.

Maybe the teething problems are going on a long time but I really hope they sort it out as it would be a really nice addition to the restaurants at this end.

Surprisingly our new waitress and waiter do make mistakes and i am trying to help them so they do not repeat the same mistakes that

the first waitresses we had made which i let go .

The teething problems are not ongoing and only arise occasionally when they seem to have a party of customers a dozen or more and customers

who are all out together in a party but want to pay and have their orders taken individually rather than a group order,other than that the restaurant is running

pretty normal.

Customers tell us they went to a multi million pound hotel for Valentines evening for a 5 course set dinner and even that particular hotel got it all wrong,so maybe even the best can get it wrong!

I suppose in an ideal world waitresses and waiters and chefs should never get it wrong,maybe im wishing for too much !

We are pushing very hard to cover all angles and make everything correct with the service.

After eating in many many of the restaurants here on the island i think our standard of food is very good.

Trying to get staff here is a nightmare,you cannot get local people,cyprus people,if you get Turkish mostly their is a language problem,so your either left with students or lots and lots of illegals,and difficult to

dig out the good.

The restaurant will run without problems most of the time,but we are human and from time to time of course there will be mistakes and any 1 who says they do not have mistakes in their restaurant

we need to meet to take a few pages from their book !

Lets hope i do not need to write here to often or anymore and that the staff can hit their peek .

Honey wrote:This restaurant has been open now for about 3 weeks - so I thought it was time to try it! It is beautifully decorated and the tables are well spaced out. The wine, as you would expect, is very good. Now to the food;

We were quite a large table but there were several mistakes made and the wrong dishes delivered to the table - in one instance a non meat eater ordered pad thai noodles with tofu and received it with chicken - then had this replaced fairly quickly with noodles in soy sauce with veg but no tofu. Unfortunately this resulted in some people eating up to an hour before other people had even received their food. In the main the starters were OK and the sushi in particular was very good.

Maybe the teething problems are going on a long time but I really hope they sort it out as it would be a really nice addition to the restaurants at this end.

I wonder if Honey has been back yet and if so what about an update !


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2REFn86 ... e=youtu.be

Do you still offer the Sunday Buffet and if so during what hours and how much please?

DieHard wrote:Do you still offer the Sunday Buffet and if so during what hours and how much please?

We have not started it yet diehard

I shall post here once we do

All I can say is wow, we had the 60 piece Sushi selection at Mandarin Oriental Chinese, Thai and Sushi restraunt in Alsancak.
Presentation and quality is second to none every piece was excellent.
The staff and owner are extremely attentive and you are made to feel very welcome.
The selection of wines is extensive and the prices are very reasonable.
They also do Chinese and Thai takeaway and will even deliver sushi to your house. All in all an excellent dining experience which I can whole heartedly recommend, the best place we have encountered for oriental food on the island and we will definately be going back.
A big thank you to Dave and his team for a very enjoyable evening.

TheSaints wrote:All I can say is wow, we had the 60 piece Sushi selection at Mandarin Oriental Chinese, Thai and Sushi restraunt in Alsancak.
Presentation and quality is second to none every piece was excellent.
The staff and owner are extremely attentive and you are made to feel very welcome.
The selection of wines is extensive and the prices are very reasonable.
They also do Chinese and Thai takeaway and will even deliver sushi to your house. All in all an excellent dining experience which I can whole heartedly recommend, the best place we have encountered for oriental food on the island and we will definately be going back.
A big thank you to Dave and his team for a very enjoyable evening.

Thank you so much for the great recommendation

Everyday is a new challenge to make eating with us an even better experience for our customers.

we went last night. the meal was excellent and staff were spot on with everything. very pleased with service we got. i couldnt pick a fault with them. well done!!

john250 wrote:we went last night. the meal was excellent and staff were spot on with everything. very pleased with service we got. i couldnt pick a fault with them. well done!!

Cheers john

Your comments make it worth doing

We have brought what we think the right chefs who are specialists in their field ,Thai chef, from Bangkok, Sushi chef trained in japan, Chinese Thai chef whose style of cooking is Pan Asian

The refurbished bar and bistro shall be re opening in the next 7 days

now within the red lion next to deniz kizi hotel

The Mandarin Bistro now up and running within the red lion bar alsancak.

Sushi ,chinese ,Thai and a little indian selection.


https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php? ... 4278885967

Many new dishes added to our menu.