Thai Lounge

Almost empty on saturday night. Waiters pounced on us and wanted us to order only expensive dishes, putting us off anything less than £6.95, even for rice. Mostly Iceland quality and quantity. The clear soup with chicken turned out to be the same as the Juggle (clear)curry with chicken. Almost had to phone to get the bill, which was ridiculous for about ten dishes, with the same tiny amount of veg in, and three small curries. No wonder it’s empty on saturday.

Shame, I was really looking forward to this restaurant opening. I understand all new openings have teething problems and I was willing to forgive it a few slip ups but it’s hard to find anything positive to say about our experience here. Hopefully the below explains the low rating
Ordering drinks=30 minutes
Waitress explaining that she could not take food orders as she did not know anything about thai food= 45 minutes
Lukewarm badly fried starters appeared (someone should tell the chef that tempura prawns are not deep fried till dark brown and don’t come coated in breadcrumbs. Maybe he didn’t know anything about thai food either?)= 1 hour ten minutes
Having to phone to get the attention of any of the staff= 1 hour 30 minutes
Left restaurant after failing to get main courses and went over to fishy business to get a take away= 2 hours ten minutes
Next visit to thai lounge= probably never
To be fair the manager did say that the food would be soon, as we were leaving, and that we could have it for free when it did appear, but that was the first contact we had had with any of the staff in an hour (my wife even had to go to the bar herself) and Fishy business seemed a much quicker and tastier alternative at that point.
The dictionary defines the word lounge as follows: to pass time idly and indolently. At least this place has a fitting name if nothing else.

This restaurant only opened in early January but it was already packed out when we went on Friday night.
The food was delicious. It was obviously being freshly prepared because the starters, mains and desserts came out in the same table order every time. Whilst this was reassuring (we knew it wasn’t just a microwave mass cooking for everyone) it did mean that the service was slow. We were in the restaurant for over 2 hours and only had 2 courses, not out of choice, but because it was so busy the staff didn’t seem ready for that sort of volume of customers.
However, give them a few weeks to settle into it and I would definitely go back.
The restaurant is very modern and minimalist, and the food is really delicious — I recommend the beef in black salt and ginger.