Yim Yam Thai Laos Ascot Vale — Restaurant in Melbourne

A catch up with old friends tonight. We loved it here. Hard to fault the surrounds. It’s an impeccably fitted out restaurant with numerous lovely spots to prop.

We had several entrees and mains. It’s rustic Thai/Laos fare but it’s mighty good food. We started with duck crepes from the specials board. They were surprisingly large crepes with really good flavour. There was plenty of duck with nice salad and a lovely sauce. Hard to ask for more. Next were the rice paper rolls. They were large and unusually loose, but delicious. Lovely flavour. The chicken satay sticks were large with a beautiful sauce that was thankfully not too sweet. Next, the yum yim yam with prawn was good. The filleted rockling piece with green curry was even better. This was lovely fish that was just lightly battered with the chili spot on. The No 50 salad - toasted rice and coconut salad - as recommended by Matt Preston was also good.

On the slightly negative side, the wine glasses were too small and made of rather thick glass. They were weird. Service was overall a bit cool and detached for my liking.

Back to the pluses though. The food was very good. The cost was modest, aided by the low amount charged for corkage. At $30 a head for a large meal, this is a...

Food was okay. But the service is quite terrible. We ordered for a table of 6 people and only 4 meals came. After about 30 minutes, it turns out 2 of the meals were "never ordered" and it was made out to be our fault. I was sure I ordered for every person and that each menu number was listed properly on the waitress' notepad. One of the forgotten orders, I was even asked for specific dietary requirements because it was a vegetarian pad thai. I specifically said eggs, peanuts was fine. So I'm confused how that was "never ordered". No apologies were expressed either. I find the food serving quite lacking for the price they charge, especially since they charged us 12% extra surcharge for public holidays. Normally that's okay but given the circumstances and the small food serving sizes, that extra charge leaves...

Ordered the teriyaki noodles one night and it was good. Ordered it the second night and it was so bland. Same order same preferences, but no flavour. Got told on the phone they would remake it, made me drive to the store and then told me there's nothing they can do about it. They said that the chef is not the same every day and that theres no point to remake the food as it would be the same. On-top of this, made us wait 1.5 hrs when it was initially 45-60 mins, for just TWO noodles. Really let down by the food and service. No point playing Russian roulette with food, making people pay 50$ and then wondering if the food will be good or not....