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| - I've been wanting to try Mamakas for a while. We booked a reservation a while back for this past Saturday night. We arrived on time, and were promptly seated. The first thing to note, however, is how crammed the restaurant is, particularly the entrance. I got the feeling that they were trying to jam as many people in there as possible, comfort or accessibility be damned!
We were seated at a table at the back, right by the window. It was lovely, but the acoustics in this place were pretty bad, and surely not helped by the number of people crammed into the restaurant.
We ordered quite a few dishes:
- Red pepper spread and pitas (definitely get a dip with pitas - the pitas are awesome)
- Cured Swordfish (I enjoyed it, my husband thought the fish was mostly hidden by the accompaniments)
- Halloumi with strawberries (good, but more of a dessert than an app as it was quite sweet)
- Horiatiki salad (I may have misspelled that - the feta made that salad, otherwise it would be pretty ordinary)
- The grilled octopus (tender and delightfully charred)
- The eggplant (just okay, as long as it was on bread, otherwise a mushy pile of goo)
We received the first four dishes within ten minutes of ordering, three dishes in the first go round and another one five minutes later. While everything was reasonably tasty, bringing four dishes that quickly for a table of two is bad service in my books. We told the runner to put a hold on bringing any more food, and her awkward response was off-putting.
When we finished off that first round, we got our mains. The octopus was good, the eggplant was okay. We settled up and went home. Overall, the food was pretty good, but the experience was dragged down by the service and atmosphere. Maybe I would go back, but it would have to be on a less busy night. With so many great places nearby, however, I'm not sure I would bother.
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