rim naam - a hidden gem within the oberoi hotel bangalore. when i say gem i am seriously only talking about its location, decor and ambience. beautifully set up within the gardens that have an artificial pond with fish, bamboo trees, palm trees et al. one certainly must make a booking before dropping by as the place is decently busy both with inhouse and visiting guests.
when you walk into such a place you expect old world hospitality which has always boasted of immaculate ambience, best of service and outstanding food. but unfortunately we experienced run down ambience, slow and unattentive service and very average food,
so as we walk in we were seated to a very nice table. the table was so wobbly that everytime i picked my glass up to drink water it would come up like a sea saw.. the table was not yet set up after the previous guests had left. so we were given the cutlery and glassware after we sat down. and this is when only about 20% of the restaurant was occupied. the glasses that were brought for us had lint - which tells me the cloth used to polish the glassware is really old and must be retired. it even had water marks .the cutlery was not even polished properly and is obviously old and run down full of scratches. we literally had to wave our hands to attract attention of a server for water. after about 10 mins we finally got water that was at ambient temperature. this happened all night long. we must have carried our own water. couple of times we also got cold water but the consentation on the jug was dripping all over the place while the waiter was pouring. whatever happened to our old friend - the waiter's cloth.
tom yum soup and tom kha soup had oil floating on top and were pretty avg. no distinct flavour of galangal or lemon grass and a typical kick of thai chillies definitely lacked in tom yum.
for main course we had phad med mamung i.e. stir fried chicken with dry red chilly and cashew nuts and
koong phad prik horm sab i.e. deep fried prawns with chilly onion garlic in tamarind sauce, chicken pad thai
chicken pineapple rice. i am a firm beliver that you experience a meal with your eyes first and then the taste comes into picture. well they lost the plot in the visuals itself. both prawns and chicken looked exactly the same. they were so alike that even the server served prawns to the entire table saying its chicken. plus all four dishes were brought from the kitchen on the same plates as the dinner plates given to guests. just like a road side dhaba you eat and get served on the same plates. in today's evolved dining scene i don't think that acceptable. the chicken lacked the flavour of dry red chillies and the prawns were just bad. chicken pineapple rice was exact same fried rice with garam masala that we toss in our home kitchens out of leftover steamed rice for evening snacks. pad thai are traditionally road side noodles but don't think that they mean indian-chinese road side noodles. the food i am sorry but was a total disaster.
the saving grace was complimentary waterchestnut in cream. seemed like fruit cream with all exotic fruits from thailand. i think the manager relaized the shortcomings hence gave us complimentary desserts.
its only because this restaurant is sheltered by the oberoi name that it enjoys such gentry flocking it. if only this place was located outside the hotel where the competition is stiff they would have realized the difference in them and an actual good restaurant.