Suanthai Restaurant (Liang Court)

It’s my mum’s birthday dinner & we’ve 7 people going for this Thai buffet. I’ve made the booking 1 week before. The Buffet dinner was $16.90++ per person; we thought of giving a try.

However, when we entered the restaurant the greeting by the service guy was not friendly;
When we are seated, we are only given 1 set of menu to share among 7 people;
So my sis request for 6 menus to look at & for ordering as well. The service guy just put the menus on the table without handling it to all of us.

After our ordering, when the 1st dish came, the waiter just put the dish at the empty table. (We have 7 people & 1 extra seat). He should put it in the centre instead of furthers end & expect us to get our own dish rearranged. But for the next few dishes, he keep putting on the dish at the empty table; which we think he should give us that little service.

Other then service, food is just average not even a passed.
Tom Yam soup – sour not weird taste
Green Curry – worst the color is very green but no taste
Steam Fish – no taste at all
Pineapple rice – taste weird
Dessert – just average

Overall, the food is worst that having a normal / cheap Thai Restaurant. Even the neighborhood Siam Kitchen is much better.

Aiya if i was to come on Mon-Thurs, the deal would be even SWEETER man!! Got promotion now. Every 4, the 4th diner eats FREE. =(

Over at Suanthai, the food are pretty much authentic and the buffet spread is wide with standard (28 dishes) and budget (23 dishes). So how to see?? One got seafood included, budget is all meat sans seafood.

Despite the wide variety, there are still some hits and misses.So the hits are

Green mango Salad
Green Curry with Beef
LaLa with Thai Chilli Paste
Pandan Wrapped Chicken
Deep Fried Squid with Butter Sauce
Boneless Stuffed Chicken Wings

The food is slightly more salty as they are supposed to go with rice so if you are not a carbo or have a big appetite, pls monitor ur rice consumption, if not, you will be too stuffed to sample the other dishes.

Date of Visit: 29 Nov 2008 (Sat)
Time of Visit: 2.15pm

Was here for the high tea on Saturday with a friend after reading from reviewers that this restaurant is 'quite good'. In fact, after our experiences here, we were very disappointed as it was way below our expectations.

We arrived at about 2.15pm and was ushered into the restaurant. Although the buffet would only start at 2.30pm, we were told that we could help ourselves with the drinks (coffee and tea) and on the dishes that were already ready. Altogether there were only 8 main dishes, which took sequence to be ready.

The 8 dishes were Fried Noodles (like mee goreng though sweeter), Fried Rice (thought it was the famous Pineapple Fried Rice but it was not but just normal fried rice), Fried Popiah (normal though not oily), Fried Vegetables (normal), Green Curry Chicken (gravy too watery and pathetically small pieces of chicken), Fried Brinjol (normal), Tom Yam Soup (ok but too spicy with the small prawns and squids and chilli padi in which my friend had choked due to the spicyness despite he could eat chilli very well) and Fish Cake (normal).

As for the dessert counter, there were red ruby with coconut cream (ok), tapioca (this was the only dish we liked as it was very sweet and tasty) and fresh fruits of water melon, papaya and honey drew. There was no kuehs or other desserts!

That's all for the high tea, though priced at about $13.00++, it was disappointing as at this price, we could go for better high tea buffet with more variety and better food (i.e. can only think of Quality and Bayview Hotels as they are similar, if we disregard those that have 1-for-1 promotions which is not a fair comparison). We felt it was not worth it and not value for money here.

As for the ambience, it was ok but a bit dark (though we were seated quite near to the windows) but we felt something was strange and funny. The restaurant played western oldies music which did not match the theme of the restaurant and decorations (with Thai paintings, lightings and also with a photo of the Thai King and Queen at the counter) as we expected some Thai music or songs.

Service wise was bad and slow despite of no crowd. Our water was not refilled automatically as we had to highlight the waiter each time before they would come over to refill.

Making things worst, we were only given one plate to fill our food and have to 'reuse and recycle' it. This was absurb as it was the very first time we have ever encountered such 'unusual' practice (maybe with this policy, staff will have lesser plates to wash or wanted to save money for the detergents!!!). Only the desserts have some bowls and small plates for you to take and use.

At about 4 plus, even before we had finished eating, the waiter cleared our 'one and only' plates leaving us with no plates to refill our food!!!

There were only about 4-5 tables occupied during our meal there. Although the buffet would end only at 5.30pm as we were told by the waitress who attended to us at the entrance (which later we were told again that it would end at 5pm), at about 4.40pm, the waiters had already given us the look to 'want us to leave soon'...

Overall, our experience here was very disappointing and below our expectations as we felt it would be good following many positive reviews here.

In addition, we did not come here with a high expectation or expect to be served good or expensive food but at least to have a more decent spread and a few more dishes but it failed us. Also the 'weird' one plate 'policy' and poor service were 'eye opening' experience for us!

Don't think we will ever come back here again unless they can do something to improve immediately to regain our and public's confidence! (Sigh)