we'd heard great things about this restaurant, and so turned up here on a friday night for a birthday dinner for 4, with 2 members never having hadthaibefore.
at the end of our meals, 3 thoughts occupied my mind :
- the food. i have had a lot ofthaifood in my life, and this has been about as good as it gets. it tasted different to other suburban restaurants, which gave the impression of it being more authentic. it was certainly tasty, and the presentation was amazing. the 2 newbies in our party were very impressed with their respective flavours and became instant fans of the cuisine.
- the ambience. the building and decor are quite striking. as you enter you are greeted with strong wooden features which culminate in a cathedral ceiling. off to one side there is an impressive feature in the wall, quite large statues with accentuated lighting. the overall lighting in the restaurant was a little too dark; i had to read out the menu items for my parents, who are only in their 60's but still had difficulty reading the menu in the given light.
- the waitresses. this was the one great negative of the night. 3 of our main dishes came out in good time, but of course all 4 should come out at the same time. it wasn't until we asked one of the girls 5 mins later about the missing dish, that it finally came out. during the meal we had finished the large serving of coconut rice, and requested another one from the waitresses so that we could continue with our meal. we were brought out a small serving of coconut rice. when it came to our table, we informed the girl that we had asked for a large serve. so we waited. and waited. we then decided to just make do with the small coconut rice between the 4 of us. just as we were finishing up with our mains, the large serve of coconut rice came to our table. so now we had this massive portion of coconut rice to get through, with nothing to mix it with.
the waitresses themselves were quite friendly, but the owners of this fine restaurant need to set some procedures and training in place for these girls as the service part of our evening was a bit of a mess.