Bloemendal Restaurant, Durbanville

Bloemendal Restaurant - Bloemendal Wine Estate (Durbanville)

Overall Rating:

Location: Durbanville, Northern Suburbs, Western Cape

Review No. 1

I had been to Bloemendal Restaurant about 10 years ago and had an absolutely fabulous experience.  The food was plentiful, great selection and very tasty.  I had been looking forward to visiting it again.

When the group buying site, Dealify offered a voucher for the Bloemendal traditional South African Buffet for R100 per person, we jumped at the chance to revisit the restaurant.

Everything inside looked pretty much the same.  You were offered a glass of sherry/juice upon arrival.  The buffet consisted of soup/starters, mains (spit braai included), desserts and coffee.  We were a little disappointed by the choice of starters.  The soup was a very thinned out butternut soup.  Was cool and we did not enjoy it at all.  However, the bread (which I presume is homemade) was delicious.  The food on the buffet wasn't heated sufficiently so it wasn't very hot at all.  There were quite a good selection of meat dishes but we found that not one of them was actually really tasty.  Even the lamb on the spit was surprisingly not tasty (not like it had been the time before).  The most enjoyable items on the menu was the bread and the vegetables.

Desserts were ok, but nothing to write home about.

When we received our bill, we noticed there was a 10% service fee included.  We were not happy about this, as we were not made aware of this on Dealify.  When we brought our concern up with the staff they told us they always charged a service fee when using a voucher and that was how it was.

Now, I strongly believe in tipping for good service.  But I do not believe in being forced to tip whether you receive good service or not.

We left extremely disappointed.

Review No. 2

There was a reasonable selection of food on the buffet but we found the heating of the food to be  insufficient yet again, as most of the food was on the cool side.  Seafood it not very enjoyable when it's cool.

Being a prawn lover, I was really looking forward to tucking into the prawns.  Unfortunately they were cold and bland.  Desperately needing some nice garlic or lemon butter sauce.

We were expecting to see the 10% service charge on our bill again, but were surprised when it wasn't included.  Thats more like it.

Again we left the restaurant disappointed.  We doubt we'll go back for a third time.