Banana Tree: Covent Garden. We ate 5pm Thursday 15th May. Was greeted well by the welcoming staff at the front (none of this review refers to this woman she was perfect), and met one of our parties gluten free needs well. All well until seated and drinks ordered. Once the drinks arrived one was a bottle of Beer, for which we then asked for a glass for, and also a jug/bottle of water and 4 glasses. Neither arrived, then they came to take the order. Once placed, we then asked again mentioning about the glass and the water. A server came back with a glass but with no water or glasses for it. And the glass we got was warm straight out of the glass washing machine. We left it at that as it was clear we weren't getting the water, and by that time it was clear it would cause an issue asking for a "not warm" glass. When the order was placed we again made it clear one of the meals was gluten free (they were pre informed when we booked the table, and the lovely greeter made a point of knowing this when we arrived and were seated) you would think this was noted down as very important information, moments later, the greeter (lovely woman) ran out to us to ask which meal was gluten free, as she knew one was supposed to be and wasn't noted down by the server which could have been far from a good outcome. Food arrived which was ok, 1 of our party enjoyed their meal, 1 was ok, and 2 were poor in flavour and texture but was an edible meal none the less. Throughout the meal we had a server constantly walking to and from to check if we had finished to take the plates. As each one of us finished they rushed to the table asking and taking the pates. One of the party was a slower eater, and while they were continuing the server continuously came looking over our shoulders and round corners to see if we had yet finished eating which was very annoying. We were all pretty much underwhelmed at this point with the food and the service. Once receiving the bill we discussed the service charge among ourselves, and how we would have been happy to pay it had we received a standard ok service to which we felt we hadn't, but how we felt embarrassed to ask not to pay it. On the receipt it specifically says, "if for whatever reason you wish to remove the service charge, please ask and it will be done NO QUESTIONS ASKED"... one of us drew up the courage to ask for it to be removed and at the point of asking, no questions were asked, and it was removed, we promptly left as we were unimpressed, and as we did so, a different server ran out the door chasing down the last person in our party shouting " you haven't paid service charge you need to pay it" to which we replied no we don't and walked off swiftly. Had we have had on par standard service alongside the poor food, we would have paid the service charge, had they not ran out the door chasing us for it, i wouldn't be leaving a negative review. I will be, and would recommend, avoiding banana tree restaurants in future. VERY disappointing.
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