Kinn-Imm Thai Hawker Food Brisbane City — Restaurant in Brisbane City

Visited last week with my girlfriends and had an extremely unpleasant service experience, particularly with the manager.

I have visited multiple times over the years, so have a decent understanding of what to expect when dining at Kinn. We were served two burnt chicken skin entrees, we initially tried to eat around the deep brown/black parts of the dish, but quickly flagged a server down to lodge a complaint. He took the two dishes from our table and soon returned the dishes back to our table, explaining that it was meant to be cooked that way. I disagreed, as we had dined here before and eat this dish many times in my own home and at other establishments, and mentioned to him that I do not wish to pay for that part of our meal since we had already complained. We didn’t touch the dishes for the rest of the meal. The rest of our meal was average, it seemed rushed and soggy compared to our local Kinn.

When we went up to pay, the manager was serving the till. I inquired as to why we were being charged for the chicken skin entrees after our complaint, and she insisted that it was of standard quality and that I was at fault for rejecting the dishes. I challenged this, and she continued to insist that I was to pay for the dishes we were dissatisfied with and had attempted to return. She then asked about the rest of the meal, to which I honestly replied was “just okay” as it was simply an average meal. The manager was very unhappy with this feedback and continued to argue about the disputed charge and our average meal. She seemed to take it quite personally that we were disappointed.

We ended up being held up at the till for 10 minutes going and back and forth with staff. We ended up negotiating the entree charges to be dropped, but left extremely disappointed with the poor service we received that night. We will not be returning to...

I've been here three times over the past 2 months and on each occasion there was an issue with the food and/or service. On one ocassion the meal for one friend in our group of 5 never arrived, even after all other meals had been served for some time. We had to continually try to get the staff's attention and ask for it, but still it didn't come. Eventually everyone was finished their meals, having waited and waited for our friend's meal to arrive before starting, as we were told the missing meal was coming. Due to the delay we ended up eating our meals cold. The missing dish was a standard green chicken curry and one had already been delivered for another person at my table. Despite our repeated requests for staff to check and get the missing meal, they seemed to fob us off. We were on a lunch break from work and had to get back, when they eventually brought the missing meal. On my second visit there were two of us and my friend's beef massaman curry was delivered quick, but wasn't hot, it was barely warm. When we advised of this problem the staff just looked at us annoyed and then took it away, saying nothing. It was about 6pm and not busy. A new dish was provided but it was another 15 minutes, by which time I'd finished my meal uncomfortably while my friend watched. On the third visit, again two of us and around 615pm and not busy, approx. 5 staff stood around chatting and ignored us after seating us. We wanted to order as we needed to be in and out quickly, but it took a long time to get their attention, like going on 10 minutes, when none of them were busy. They knew we there as there as only two other tables in the restaurant had customers. I think the food is reasonably good, but I've found the service to be consistently poor and will not return to dine in. I may try how they...

Ordered the Papaya Salad with Salted Crab. To my surprise when I started eating it, the crab was just brined and appeared raw. I had a expectation of soft shell crab for some reason. To be honest, it wasn’t the restaurant’s fault about that. My expectation was different. At first I thought it was a mistake and I was going to send that dish right back... even after having taken the order away. However on some research aka Google, it was Boo Kem. It was meant to be that way. The crab is brined and fermented and imparts a briny Unami flavour to the salad. It’s usually smashed to release the juices and put into the salad. Diners usually just push the crab bits aside in Thailand. I’ve concluded that I’m not a fan of the dish and didn’t finish it.

So why the 5 stars?

Because when was the last time you went to a restaurant that was unashamed authentic and didn’t care if they offended the local dining populace with their authenticity? This isn’t toned down Thai for the masses, this was real Thai. Food that a local would be eating in Thailand. To serve this in the middle of Brisbane takes courage. A lesser restaurant wouldn’t have even offered the dish scared of offending the audience, instead offering just some excessively sweet Westernised Pad Thai... Sure I’ve discovered that I’m not a fan of raw fermented crab, but ordering a dish and having a less than savoury response to said dish is something that sometimes happens when you travel and go outside your comfort zone. But to have such an experience at home in Brisbane was fairly impressive. I would gladly go back to Kinn-Imm.... just no more...