Khao Pla — Restaurant in Sydney

This a review of our experience in the Chatswood Khao Pla branch at 05/04/2025.

My family and i were in between by 5:30 to 6:30ish with a booking.

Let me start with saying I love the food at Khao Pla and I will die on the hill saying that Khao Pla has the best Thai food that Sydney has to offer. My family and I have been going since the Chatswood branch opened, so for a number of years now.

However, something has recently changed at the Chatswood branch, maybe the standard of customer service? The past few visits the customer service has been really hit or miss but this night on particular just really blew me over the edge.

There were 2 female servers, one of them mostly likely the senior or the manager? She had dark hair and the other server had brown hair. The lady with with the Brown hair was okay. However, dark hair manager lady was the most rudest server i have ever had in a restaurant in general. This sounds like an exaggeration but im sorry, it isnt.

She treated us horribly the moment we walked in. Didnt even greet us. We said our name and told us where to sit and said “you need to finish by 7:30PM for other booking” something or rather, which is fair enough but why communicate it in that manner?

We were polite to her but she was so cold to us and so rude. Why? What did we do? She was already like this as soon as we walked in? Did we look wrong? Does she hate Filipinos possibly? She had no problem being polite to the White elderly women sitting across us.

she served our food like you would give your dog pet food. Just place it on the table passively aggressively and walk away.

We had a high chair as we were dining woth my 2YO nephew who wanted to sit next to her Grandma which was in between our table and the table next to us. She told us rudely again, to move it to the other side as it is “in a walkway”. Lady please, there are 2 sides of the table you can serve food pretty easily for the other table on the other side. You want us to move a 2YO chair+food and my mums, food, utensils etc to the other side of our table because you somehow cant use the other side to serve food for the table next to us? Really?

I mean we would have done it if she asked politely or maybe didnt treat us like trash soon as we walked in the restaurant?

We love Khao Pla, but this was just a horrible experience. Means very little to the business I know, but we are not coming back to Chatswood Khao Pla. The food was good as always but not enough to make up for the customer experience in Chatswood lately. so we will probably visit Macquarie maybe better service there.

This lady should not be working in customer service if she is going to treat customer service this way. It was not even peak dinner service yet she was already done with her shift. Hilarious.

Thanks...

Khao Pla is a delightful Chatswood local Thai restaurant that I enjoy coming to and always enjoyable to dine in. My preference is still dining within the restaurant as opposed to the outdoor seatings, especially when it is rainy and cold. The decor has largely remained the same since the early days i patronised this restaurant, but it still works as it is contemporary.

Highlight & notes: Located in a very easily accessible part of Chatswood. Reasonable walking distance from the train station, not too far from bus stops and also Westfield parking. There is indoor and outdoor seating. They accept both cash and card. They have table service where orders are placed with the wait staff themselves. They were very patient to address any clarifications with the dishes we were about to order. They were all very attentive during our meal. E.g. they noticed when the bottle of table water was finishing and quickly brought a new one before we requested it. They also cleared the empty plates not long after we had finished the dish. Also, when we were first seated, it was by the window as the restaurant was pretty packed. When there was a table available, they moved us to a more comfy spot as it was rather cool that night. Kudos to them in truly being attentive. We enjoyed all the dishes ordered with shoutouts going to the yum salmon dish. The fresh flavours complemented the freshness of the salmon. The only drawback to the dish is it is visibly a smaller portion compared to my earlier visits to this eatery a few years ago. The pork skewers were delightful, and it tasted good with a good balance of savoury and a bit of sweetness to the marinade.

Not the most recent visit, but I have enjoyed their tamarind pork ribs & hor mok yang too in the past visits. I also recall that i didnt quite enjoy their afternoon tea special they had for fried rice as well. Wasnt quite to my liking. Nevertheless, it is a good Chatswood local Thai restaurant that I would...

I am not too sure how much money this restaurant spent on food review, but after I have been here tonight, I could ensure you some of the reviews are untrue. After my awful experience here, I could share you Four points.

The portion of food is tiny. We ordered a fish dish, and there are only five small pieces and extremely salty. We also ordered a seafood fire rice, and there are only two pieces of prawns, three tiny pieces of fish, one piece of squid and not up to one bowl of rice.

The food is not worth the money. I can not taste what kind of fish for the fish dish because it is too salty. However, I could 100% sure fish on fire rice is Basa Fillet, a very cheap type of fish, very smelly if you cannot cook well. Even so, we only had three tiny pieces.

It is not authentic. I usually judge Thai food authenticity by the taste of pad thai. Again, the portion is small, and the taste is not even as good as the Pad Thai you could order from the Thai food from the food court.

The payment system is ridiculous. If you expect people to pay the high price for the food, then you may make the payment system more accessible, but it is not how they do things in the restaurant. If you want to pay credit card, 1.5% surcharge, if you're going to pay debit card, there is also the possibility to pay the surcharge, so make sure you bring cash to eat there.

Overall, my experience in Khao Pla was extremely disappointed. In totally, I paid 72 dollars for three people, and we were still hungry. To be honest, After study and work in Macquarie University area for more than ten years, this is the first time we all left a resturant with not even half full tummy and felt not worth the money. Macquarie Centre is not Circular Quay or Westfield in the City, and people come here for the value, not something fancy, again the food is not even 50% as good as Chat Thai...