Nuba Cafe opened up at the renovated Waldorf Hotel on Hastings. They serve up delicious Lebanese food.
When we arrived, the place was packed. The hostess greeted us and we had to wait a 5 minutes for a table, so they told us to wait at the bar. They had lots of reservations, but the only table available was a table at the back of the restaurant beside the back exit to the hotel. It seemed like the most out of place table in the entire restaurant. We still didn’t mind since we were looking forward to the meal.
Looking around, it is a beautiful venue and it was quite lively at night.
At a later point in the night, all the lights get dimmer to set the mood.
Mexican Cola ($4) is similar to the usual coca-cola, but made with cane sugar. The old school bottle made it fun to drink!
Young Coconut ($6.50) is a real coconut that is brought to your table. The juice is very sweet and crisp! You even get a small spoon to scoop out the coconut meat to eat.
Fruit et Feta with chicken($9.50 +$4) has Macedonian feta, dried nuts and apricots with organic greens and a red wine pomegranate vinaigrette. I added on chicken for an additional $4. I have to say, I was quite disappointed by the size of the skewer…and for $4…quite a rip off! The salad did get me quite full since it was filled with lots of dried fruits and nuts!
Here is where the dining experience started to take a turn for the worse.
As I got my entree, M’s Lamb stew never arrived. We thought that the lamb stew would take a bit longer since salads are so much faster to prepare. I thought I would wait till he got his entree, but since he’s a gentleman, he told me to go ahead and start. I was hungry, so I didn’t mind. Half way though my salad, I dropped my fork, so I thought I would wave down a waitress to get me a new one. I tried flagging them a few times but no one seemed to notice us. I shrugged it off and just took M’s fork since his food didn’t arrive yet.
I ate the salad pretty slowly for 40 minutes but still no sign of the entree. We thought this was particularly strange, so we tried yet again to flag down the waitress. A few of them passed us by and we saw our waitress tend to a few tables 2/3 times…and she didn’t even once stop by our table to ask how we were doing.
Now it was an hour later, I was close to finishing my dish and the waitress finally see our hands up. We ask what the status of M’s entree was and she said she did not hear us ordering the lamb strew. She felt bad and asked us if we still wanted it, M politely declined since there was no point since I was almost done my dish. She told us we should of totally flagged her down. (We tried!!!! Oh god! We really tried hard!). She even offered the dish free of charge, but we declined again since we had to go. She said the music in the room was quite loud and she also didn’t hear an order at another table.
I don’t completely blame her since it was a busy night, but it would be good to repeat customers orders just in case you didn’t hear anything, also check up on them. Plus, isn’t it strange that 2 people walk into a restaurant and order 2 drinks and a salad? We’re asian, but we aren’t that cheap.
To compensate us, they didn’t charge us for the coconut drink. It was nice of them, but still left us feeling bitter. In the end, I spent $24 eating a salad, drinking drinks, flaggin down waitresses, and watching M get hungry & frustrated. This might have just been my asian side, but I thought they should have compensated us for the whole meal.
Thanks Nuba, you ruined a perfectly good date for us. You may have good food, but you ruined our night.
Do keep in mind that this is probably those rare occurrences that happen, so I’m sure it doesn’t happen every night.
Words of Wisdom:
- Special Menu’s every month
- Make reservations in advanced and ask to be seated by the booths near the window
- More expensive than the other Nuba locations
We Rate Nuba Waldorf: 
Address:
1489 E Hastings St
Vancouver, BC V5L
Website:
www.waldorfhotel.com/nuba/
