Malandela's Guest House

We have known this place for a while and were disappointed by the deterioration of the property itself and the service. To our great surprise everything was closed December 24-26, aka “the festive” in Eswatini when every other place in the Kingdom is humming. House on Fire didn’t organize anything for the Crossover. The joke about “Closed due to wealth” comes to mind. Our room had a serious insect issue as well, our 3 year old girl was bitten by something that required medical attention. The pool water is semi clean at best. If it wasn’t for the friendly and helpful staff this review would be worse. We also liked the restaurant and the new shops, but are likely not coming back to stay at the lodge.

We visited Eswatini from South Africa over this past easter weekend. On Saturday 30th March on the recommendation of the family we were visiting, we ended up at Malandelas Restuarant where a group 7 of us had lunch. The place and ambience were pleasant. They had an Easter Market (very few stalls probably 4-6), there was an acceptable amount of people, which did not make the establishment over crowded. Upon arrival, our designated waitress took her time to take our drinks order. Drinks took a while to get to us. We then had to ask for the menu at some stage as this also took long to be shared. We may have been there just over an hour before our meal was served. During the wait period, we tried first to get the attention of another waiter who was standing right in front of us, but not paying attention to anything and staring into space. We noticed that the owner was standing close by to our table, mingling with his family and little kids, as well as entertaining the guests at his table, beer in hand, and obvlivious to the fact that paying guests were getting frustrated and unhappy. We approached him, and his first response was that it was a busy day 🤔 At this point we were ready to pay for the drinks and leave. However, the decision to do this was split in the group as some people felt that it was not fair, even though we were all affected by the very poor service. Our food arrived and it was cold. Everyones food was cold, not just one or two patrons. The Mashed potatoes were so cold, it felt like you were eating mealie pap. Everyones fries were cold, not even luke warm. The only burger that was ordered came in way after everyones meal had arrived. The lentil and butternut Dhal arrived cold as well. They got one of the orders wrong, and the waitress was so perplexed, she didnt know what to say. Our bill was not small - Wow Malandelas. If this is how you treat patrons on a not so busy day, or any other day for that matter. I would hate to see what happens on busier days...poor us and poor future patrons. Poor service and bad food! Never recommending this place to anyone.