40 Grains — Restaurant in Sydney

Ordered takeaway last night online for our Mother’s Day dinner at home and unfortunately was very disappointed with the service. I normally wouldn’t leave a bad review as I believe that this is one of the best Thai places in the Inner West, however I want to be honest about my disappointment with the experience we had.

I ordered the food online via the website at 18:11pm (according to the email confirmation) and requested for it to be ready by 19:30pm. Keep in mind it is a $200+ order (10 dishes) so I made sure to put in the order at least an hour earlier than the requested pickup time as I assumed they’d be busy. That would give them 1 hr 20 minutes to prepare the order in time.

We showed up to the restaurant at 19:30pm as planned and paid and got told it wouldn’t be “too long”.

Unfortunately, we didn’t receive our food till 20:30pm… so we waited an hour outside …despite ordering online at 18:11pm and requesting for it to be ready at 19:30pm. We got a sorry and a bag of prawn crackers to apologise for the wait which was disappointing to say the least.

In hindsight, maybe we should’ve complained earlier, however we wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt as they looked very busy. We did go up to them once at about 7:45pm and were told “it’s coming”.

I 100% understand that they were super busy and under the pump for mothers day, however if preordering and requesting a time for pick up isn’t possible, then please don’t allow that as an option online. We pre ordered online so the food would be ready by 19:30pm, so they had 1 hr and 20 minutes to prepare for the large order. If we had have known that it would have taken them this long to make our order, we would’ve ordered elsewhere where our food would’ve been ready on time for pickup. Especially since it was a large order, I would’ve expected them to prioritise it and ensure it would be ready on time.

On a side note, I actually think they forgot our order, hence why we waited so long. But if that were the case, they should’ve explained the situation to us and we would’ve been more empathetic of the situation and let it slide as mistakes happen. Also if they had forgotten we would’ve waited in the car or come back when it was ready, instead of waiting outside in the rain.

The only other disappointment was with the papaya salad (Photo below). Maybe they potentially ran out of the salad because they were busy, however it’s disappointing to pay $16.90 when the container is so empty. All the other food was filled to brim in their containers so it was a stark contrast to see the salad.

Overall, the food is still great quality and it’s nice to see the restaurant pumping on a Sunday night, however, I think it’s fair to say that they need to work on streamlining their orders and timings for takeaway or not offer pre ordering at all if they can’t fulfil the timings. I’ll still come back for their food, however I will only eat in after such a bad experience...

We have visited this restaurant many times this would be our last visit without a doubt. Placed an order for takeaway as we knew being a Saturday night it would be very busy and extremely loud. Nonetheless arrived 15mins after placing the order. The place was crazy loud could barely hear myself think! Went to the counter to pay and collect and was welcomed with “What name?” After responding I then got “$75 cash discount” and waited to be paid to then have the receipt literally thrown at me.

We had ordered :

Chicken Pad Thai Chicken green curry Chicken satay skewers Duck Salad Veg spring rolls Coconut rice

Let’s just say there was a lot left overs almost like we didn’t touch it because it was that disappointing it was ridiculous.

The Chicken Pad Thai was so dry and tasteless this was a dish we would get every time. It was also throwing off this really unusual not very pleasant taste.

The green curry was not creamy at all it had this pool of oil just sitting at the top of the container almost like it had split and it was beyond spicy!

The duck salad was served with a few bits and pieces of some kind of green soggy tomatoes. The duck itself was so so chewy it was inedible.

The chicken skewers were average and nothing to rave on about.

Coconut rice was fresh as were the spring rolls.

Overall the experience this time was not great at all. Such a shame to have been so many times and to have never had this problem feels like they have gone downhill immensely in the last 6 months.

Best advice… save your money and go somewhere else for Thai as this definitely...

So far the worst service ever our first visit at Summer hill. We booked a table for 4 on Mother's day for 6.30pm and arrived at 6.23pm. A table was allocated and we all got seated and served with cold bottle water whilst browsing the menu for meal order next. Thinking that booking is so essential to guarantee a table on such a joyful occasion as a few others (smaller group) were waiting for their turn, 5 minutes later, we were told to vacate the table as someone (a larger group of 10 purportedly running late) booked before us. The front manager trying to move us to the temporary setup table sandwiched in between two other groups on the left & right leaving no room to walk about and for social distancing. We decided not to take it and were told to wait outside for our turn. We didn't mind waiting but were left unattended went past 7.30pm. We understand the chaos and stress the kitchen staff not able to a cope with demand so decided to move across the road to Thai Garn and were lucky - they accommodated us without prior booking and a table for 4 was like pre-readied for us (only table empty). The food was fantastic and won't cost you arms and legs and the service was second to none (a family resto). We ended up giving some tips and enjoyed ourselves without the needing stress. Service is paramount and you never chuck dinners out waiting in the cold unattended after being seated just for a few more dollars in revenues (from a larger group) who...