Thaiger Temple — Restaurant in Terrigal

A few years ago; this restaurant held the highest of my regards; and for good reason.

My best-friend and myself were weekly customers until he passed away. I continued to visit and order take-away for years afterward. We loved the place, it was a place for the two of us to enjoy great food, and drink and be merry, and even briefly catch up with our friends behind the bar.

After tonight’s experience, I will not be back; and so soured are once wonderful memories.

Having arrived; we were seated and ordered drinks, I had been presented a menu and after some conversation; during which we were badgered in what felt like every other minute to order our food, I was informed there was no Green Curry with Beef. I was puzzled, I asked why this was the case only to have the response “Because we don’t”; I remember ordering and enjoying this in the past; however long ago that may have been.

Whilst the rest of our party ordered; the teenager taking our order decided to stand over me until I had ordered the food; I suggested that perhaps this would take a while as I hadn’t familiarised myself with the new menu and that maybe returning to resume the order later might be an idea. We had agreed, and off she popped.. eventually.

A few minutes later I enquired if there were other beef items on the menu; and was told they do in fact make a Beef Penang curry but couldn’t possibly offer the hospitality services of a Beef Green Curry.

Fascinated and confused as to what exactly could have been the issue with inserting 6 beef strips into a green curry sauce I decided I would not order a main course at all.

Entrees had began to arrive; and we then noticed we had only been given forks, no knives, spoons, napkins or anything. Class act.

Minutes later after already highlighting my disappointment at how far fallen this service had become; another staff member, clearing a table happened to drop a stack of at least 8 plates and full dining settings headed to the wash; at my feet and seeing my clothes covered in the seconds and chewed food of other diners, I thought I might be better suited elsewhere… like a food court Thai kiosk - they do green curry beef by the way.

Truly disappointing.

I would encourage everyone to have their own opinions but I am so sadly compelled to demonstrate my experience.

Exemplary in...

Okay, we've gone from a 5⭐ to 2⭐ and now so happy we went back a few times since and it's 5⭐ again. 🙂 Staff are perfectly attentive and food is still great, seems like the younger summer staff have gone and the regular staff are more FOH. We went for my partners bday last night and he is quietly OBSESSED with this place. It's his go to place when he wants to go out. So he is extremely particular and wants it just right. There was one particular staff that stood out and made it a great evening, we quietly tipped her and thanked her for helping make his bday a good time for us, we didn't get her name but we'll definitely be back more often now.

Changed from 5⭐ to 2⭐

Really disappointed in Thaiger Temple since we've reopened after lockdown!

This is our local go to restaurant when we go out as a family. We spend on average $200+ each visit on food and drinks.

The food is still great, but the fresh from high school staff are severely under trained on correct FOH customer service. Making it extremely frustrating when you want something, and when you do they are quite rude in their response when you mention you're frustrations with waiting so long, or having to walk up to the chatting staff around the bar "There is table service you know, so you can sit down" 😳. Lack of table attention and responsiveness when you need them! They are more interested to chat around the bar, or to their friends who come in to visit. We had to get up and walk inside to ask for service to order . When a dish came out we wanted more drinks, we were told she was just a server and a waitress will come and get our order (just wanted 1 more drink! 🙄) It took ages for that waitress to come to our table just to get one drink. I could go on and on about the FOH staff responses. They need a proper manager to keep them on their toes!

It's frustrating because this really ruined our evening and we left without finishing, as we were just too annoyed with the service and their rude responses.

Won't be going back for now and will take a lot for us to...

Rudest customer service. Don’t bother wasting your time.

06/06/23: I emailed requesting to book. 10/06/23: Response from Thaiger temple (Lucinda) requesting for my phone number to call and discuss. I responded the same day and provided my phone number. 16/06/23: As no email response from Thaiger Temple, as well as no attempts to ‘call and discuss’. I called them to book, (as requested). The girl who answered the phone said “why can’t you just book online?” I said “I have been emailing and have been instructed by Lucinda to call and book”. She said “well what’s your problem, why can’t you just do it online, we’re really busy, just go online.”

I told her I would have but I was just instructed to call. If they told me that on the email I would have done that 10 days ago on 06/06/23.

Absolute rudest customer service, I’m so disappointed. I was ready to book an event here but now I’m not going ahead. I’ll tell all the guests to steer clear from here. Im glad I didn’t waste my time or money, but I’m disappointed I’ve wasted 10 days...