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I go to Mo bay hoping that my experience this time will be better than the last time but it never is. The service is horrible. When you enter, it takes about 10 minutes before you're acknowledged and when they do its with attitude. But, Im a sucker for their cornbread.

I'm a caribbean who loves soul food as well. So who could ask for more when I saw this one stop caribbean/soul food restaurant featured on foodnetwork's escovtich fish throwdown show. Restaurant is not too large but it's colorful which gives it a bright interior. Staff was friendly enough. Did get very noisy at one point because of an obnoxiously loud table across from us but that's not the restaurant's fault just a rude group of people. But I digress. Shared the escovitch fish and bammie as an appetizer. Wasn't bad. Had a spicy kick to it with a bit of sweetness. They serve a free cornbread sample with some type of pineapple cream before your meal. The cornbread was tasty and served piping hot but didn't like the pineapple cream at all. For main course, I ordered the fried chicken (thigh, leg combo) with mac n' cheese and candied yams while my friend ordered the oxtail with rice & peas and fried plantains. They served the wrong chicken portion to me (breast and wing and I really don't like fried chicken breast). Waiter offered to get me another entree (no thanks) or reorder with the correct chicken selection (yes but of course now I had to wait an additional 20 minutes or so). In the meantime my friend's order was delivered at the same time as my incorrect order so I sampled a bit of hers. We both thought the oxtail was tender and had good flavor. I thought the rice n' peas was standard fare and sweet plantains were sweet plantains (not much you can do to mess those up). So by the taste of my friend's oxtail I thought my dish should be good too but alas I was wrong. This was probably one of the worst fried chicken meal I've ever had. Fried chicken had absolutely no flavor, zip, zero, nada. Had a crunchy crust but that's about the only good thing I could say about it. The candied yams didn't do any better than the chicken. It had a thin barely sweet sauce. It just seemed as if they cut open a can of yams and then boiled it in very diluted sugar water. As for the mac n' cheese, that was just okay. There was definitely no soul in my soul food. Guess I should have taken the waiters other offer and selected an entirely different entree. Would I go back? Probably not. After having a really bad meal at a restaurant it tends to leave a bad taste in your mouth (pun intended). I think Mobay should just stick to the caribbean cuisine and master that instead of trying to be a jack of all culinary trades.

My boyfriend and I went to this establishment in March of 2009 and thankfully we were satisfied customers. The food was well seasoned and you know that is a great sign for great soulfood. The waiters could try to be a bit more attentive while serving since it isn't a large restaurant. I ordered the ribs and I ate every last one of them. But overall, we loved our meals and we will definitely go back And get a plate to go!! I enjoyed the live entertainment as well.

A business this poor would not be able to survive any place outside of Harlem, because Harlem has so few good semi to upscal eateries. I've been here several times, but assuredly I'll never be back. Here I've received the worst service that I can remember receiving at a restaurant in recent memory, and I dine out very frequently. My party of three sat down on a weekend afternoon, the place was nearly empty. Our food took an hour and a half to arrive, one of us ordered a salad, I ordered two vegetarian sides, and the other diner ordered a mock meat. They waited an hour after we had ordered to tell us that the salad one of us had ordered was 86'ed. We would've gotten up and left, but we were so hungry by that point we stayed. To make matters worse, it appeared that our server was hiding out in the kitchen away from us, or at least doing his best to ignore us even though we asked where our food was several times. That is my biggest pet peeve...how can you compound the insult of making a diner wait for an hour and a half for their food by ignoring them nearly entirely? When the bill came, they told us that they were 'happy to take the salad off the bill'? Excuse me?! We waited an hour and half for our food, the only thing you'll take off the bill is the salad that my companion didn't even want to begin with? Ludicrous! I was able to speak with the manager however and had both the salad taken off and half of the rest of our meal comped. I usually avoid making a big stink in restaurants because I am very sympathetic with service industry workers but the service that day was so remarkably poor I would've been remiss to let it slide. I will never eat there again.

I have never ordered from this place and gave it a shot. A good one at that after spending 90 dollars on 3 different dishes between me and my friends. 3 Dishes = 90 dollars, we thought at the time of ordering the food must be worth it being so pricey, but no. The food is unappetitizing. I'm no cook yet I could be making a ham sandwich much more appealing. Fish and rice are subpar, Ribs are bland, Shrimp is small, Yams... I don't know how I'd do it, but they've figured a way to, so this is quite an accomplishment.

I usually come here with my husband because we love the food. However, the last time we were there a few months ago they started adding $10 to the bill for the live band from Thursday to Saturday. It used to be that they would go around collecting the donations. Don't get me wrong the music is good, can be a bit loud when you are trying to talk to the person across from you at the table but if the owner chooses to have a live band, why should $$$ be added to my bill. It's really not about being cheap, I just don't feel they should have made that decision.

At first glance Mobay seems inviting. The actual eating experience was not good. I had to wait 10 minutes to be seated during the middle of the week when the place was empty. It took the waiter another 10 minutes to bring me a beer. The live jazz band was good which is the ONLY thing that kept me there. I ordered Curry chicken with rice and peas, and sweet plantains. The peas were undercooked and hard, the rice tasted as if it was scraped from the bottom of the pot. The plantains were chewey, as if they were microwaved. The curry chicken was decent. Bottom line, you come here for the music and nothing else.