Manoto

Just an ok place. Avtual food is juat ok. Not a gastronomic experience. Filled the stomach and that was it.

Dear Hellnoto… No. No To That!
Everybody aims to be best in a category, so I do admire Manoto’s ambition to offer the worst service, confused staff, wrong orders, longest waits, and attitude. Keep up the good work, one day, you shall be the infamous for it!
The food itself was good, nothing to write home about, but still flavorful. The staff was merry-​go-​round of different people pretending to hear our order for the first time, bringing wrong dishes and telling us that is for sure what we ordered from someone else, and forgetting to bring us drinks the whole evening. How many times can you order the same bottle of wine before you get it? I think about 5! I can say though that they were never actually rude to us, just very clueless and chaotic.
I hope you don’t go there starving… you may have to wait a loooooooooooooong time for a dish you didn’t order but will eventually eat anyways because it’s hopeless.

Delicious Iranian food. I had the combo chicken and lamb kabobs. The seasoning was fantastic. The only downside to this place is the service. They were a little slow and a bit on the rude side at first. But, looking past that, the food was quite tasty. The food definitely outweighs the service here.

Tired of less than desirable serving staff attitudes?
Expats looking to get better than Dutch service?
Looking for the warm hospitality to match gorgeous food and wonderful ambiance?
THEN DON’T COME HERE!
Unilocalers, I’m sad.
Why?
Because I love Persian food. Like… want to have babies with Fessenjan (pomegranate walnut stew)
So you can imagine the chasm of despondence I plummeted into when coming to Manoto. I’m honestly not that picky when it comes to service, but this place has so far won the Amsterdam Worst in Service prize for 2013! Having lived in the U.S. and not speaking Spanish sometimes created language barriers at some restaurants, but not even Dutch or English were on our side here! The place was busy so everything took a long time. Again… Don’t really mind since I’m with good company. But when things started coming out, they missed plates, sides, drinks… We were very nice and patient about everything but we honestly thought we were on MTV’s Boiling Point! The wait staff kept switching through our culinary adventure making things even more chaotic. In Manoto’s defense, they were also patient with us and more or less fixed what was wrong. But once a plate is brought out incorrectly twice and you are already hungry from the wait, you stop making a fuss and just eat what’s given to you.
Luckily for me, the dish I wanted, my beloved Fessenjan which I want to gastronomically bathe with daily, was brought out even though the type of rice I ordered with it was wrong. Worst of all was the price we had to pay at the end. This place isn’t the cheapest and it just doesn’t seem fair to pay that much for sub-​Dutch service.
But wait folks, Uncle Scrooge-​Dennis still has a heart. On the plus side, the food was good. Not the best Persian I’ve had, but it fulfilled my Fessenjan fantasies. The other dishes were great and the best part is that if you want to get the fancy smancy rice (with currants, carrots, cardamom, etc.) they will totally do it for you. We also asked for Tadic (crispy rice) that wasn’t on the menu and in they made it for us.
It breaks my Unilocal heart to say I won’t spend any more money here since there are other mediocre Persian places in Amsterdam.
So 4 stars for the food and an overall of 2 because I won’t be back. I hope that this was an isolated incident and more people will share their experiences here!
I guess I’ll just have to settle for fessenjan-​porn on the internet!