Cookie — Restaurant in Melbourne

When seated, wait staff kept kicking and walking into the back of my chair. One occasion as I was drinking resulting in me spilling my drink over my food and a second occasion when I was eating, and I bit my tongue. There's plenty of cameras overlooking the restaurant, so you'll see I moved the table and chair myself at least three times to mitigate the situation and make sure there was enough room for the staff. It kept happening. There was at least 1.5M of space between the back of my chair and the next tables chair, so it was just pure laziness and arrogance. It ruined my dining experience having to make sure I stopped eating when staff were walking around the back of the chair. Not fun or enjoyable. The opposite to relaxing. Other than the chair, I found it really odd that my dining companions drink was bought out straight away, and then mine was bought out at the same time as the food. Sitting there with no drink for a long time was not ideal. We were going to order more drinks with our food but there wasn't a point anymore? Had to serve my own water, the stainless water jugs were also empty. Paying? Stood at three different tills trying to get someone's attention so we can pay and leave. We even joked we should leave without paying as nobody would know. Paying was painfully difficult. We went back to our table to sit down because staff were non existent. Why was it so difficult to pay and leave? The half chicken was so dry, I needed to drown it in sweet chili sauce, which was a shame because the actual five spice flavour was delicious in itself. The fibres were so stringy, nearly inedible. It was by far the dryest chicken I've ever eaten, that I wish a bowl of sand accompanied it to moisten it. Otherwise, the egg and pea fried was delicious, as was the drunken noodles. Constantly kicking and knocking the chair is considerably dangerous, especially since I bit my tongue. The staff member who kept doing it looked unapproachable and I did not feel comfortable bringing it to his attention. I had already tucked my chair in so much, that I was so restricted. I am small to medium build person if that makes a difference. I have had more space on a Cessna than I did at...

Ahh new job, new people to teach that the camera eats first. But don't worry, by the time dessert came out, our CFO asked if I had taken my photo yet before he dug in 💁‍♀️

We celebrated our Christmas lunch at Cookie and believe me, there was MUFFIN CRUMBY about it! 🎅

On the menu: SMALL DISHES 🍃 DIY betel bliss bombs, betel leaves, peanuts, lime, toasted coconut, ginger, onion & dried shrimp with a sticky coconut & shrimp sauce 🍠 Sweet potato & young coconut cigars, orange & chilli sauce ⭐️ 🦈 Thai herb cured kingfish with radish & green chilli 🐙 Salt & pepper calamari, sweet chilli sauce 🥟 Tapioca dumplings, lotus root, pickled turnip & peanuts ⭐️ 🐽 Grilled Thai sausage, cucumber, cabbage, ginger, chilli 🍗 Fried chicken wings, Thai BBQ sauce

MEDIUM DISHES 🐟 Crispy fish salad, green papaya, peanuts & ground dried shrimp 🍜 Drunken noodles - minced pork, tomato, Thai basil & chilli 🐟 Deep fried rockling, tamarind, chilli & pineapple sauce ⭐️ 🐮 Yellow beef curry with egg, shallot & chilli ⭐️

LARGE 🐣 Turmeric chicken maryland, salted duck egg, dried shrimp & ginger salad 🐄 Beef ribs, lemongrass, lychee & star anise ⭐️

DESSERT 🍌 Banana fritters, vanilla ice cream & honey

WINE 🍷 2022 Pinot Noir Tolpuddle - Coal River Valley 🍷 2020 Shiraz Head Blonde 20 - Barossa Valley 🥂 2022 Chardonnay 22 - Domenica - Beechworth 🥂 2023 Rieslingfreak No 12 - Flaxman Valley 🥂 NV Chardonnay – Chandon “Blanc de Blanc” Brut - Yarra Valley

I had decent expectations given that I had been to their sister restaurant Magic Mountain Saloon and loved it, but this was even BATTER than expected (seriously I think we ate the entire menu).🤤

It's so hard to choose favourite dishes, honestly there wasn't a single one that disappointed. But if you're one to say I absolutely KNEAD to choose, I have put a ⭐️ next to the ones I still have happy memories about ❣️

I have been given permission to organise all team celebrations from now on (not gonna SUGARcoat it, I did a great job 😇). I will BAKE the most of this to eat at more places I want to try using...

ORDERED: 🍃  DIY betel bliss bombs: betel leaves, peanuts, lime, toasted coconut, ginger, onion & dried shrimp with sticky coconut & shrimp sauce ($25.00)

🥗  Som Tam: green papaya with avocado, dried shrimp & peanuts ($18.00) 🌽  Spicy jungle with tofu, baby corn & pumpkin ($28.00) 🐟 Deep fried snapper, chilli, garlic & crispy Thai basil ($41.00) 🍚 Coconut rice ($6.00)

🍹  Virgin Pina Colada ($11.00) *off menu!

REVIEW: 🧡 The DIY betel bliss bomb were my favourite at Cookie! You can choose and create the most delicious, flavour filled combinations that create really fun experiences. You can also leave certain ingredients out and it wouldn't impact the taste too much. It really is a DIY experience. My only wish is that they provided more utensils between two, or else one person was using their hands to pick the ingredients into your leaf, and the other was using the provided fork. 🖐️

✖️ The mains were a miss for me. I expected the som tam to have more tartness, but tasted very mellow. Similar to all the other dishes we had, with the spicy tofu feeling very heavy and the deep fried snapper not particularly crispy. It was nice Cookie carved out the meat and fried it separately, but I was expecting to be able to snack on the crispy "deep fried" tail fin at the very least. 😥 Coconut rice didn't leave a particularly fragrance of coconut either. I feel like there was so much potential, but it was missing that extra effort of flavour and citrus/tangy punch that I would have expected from a menu that is very heavily Thai inspired.

✔️ Service was fantastic. They were able to make a bespoke mocktail for us which was greatly appreciated. Much love to...