Restaurant Farang — Restaurant in Helsinki sub-region

I've been sitting on this review for months now, because I found the dining experience deeply upsetting. I am writing this from my point of view as a Thai woman.

What the restaurant experience said to me, and what the restaurant description should have read:

"A white man visited South-East Asia. He frequented some tourist traps. He also discovered some new flavours that he liked from around the region and appropriated them, combined them, and watered them down in a way that would appeal to Western taste buds while claiming they are authentic Asian flavours. Trigger warning: the menu includes racism and sexism."

This would have been an honest description, and I would not have been sitting there feeling rage at the blatant perpetuation of gendered racism on the menu.

A few specific things that still make me angry, some months after my visit:

Some of the dishes claimed to be "spicy." None of them were, and the waiting staff seemed baffled when I asked for chili, a staple on tables of many SE Asian restaurants. The chili they brought out was also very mild and not spicy at all.

The first bowl of rice we got was just poorly cooked and soggy. I would have sent it back to the kitchen in Thailand. The subsequent bowls were ok.

Sweet chili sauce was used as a base for the sauce of one dish that might otherwise have been ok. Sweet chili sauce is like the Thai equivalent of ketchup - it's something cheap you dip junk food in. To put it in context for a Western eater, it's like going to a fancy Italian restaurant and being served a spaghetti with ketchup.

The first thing the waiter lead with was "Would you like water or sparkling water for an extra fee?" ??? Sparkling water is free at my lunch cafe... it seems like a strange thing to start the conversation with. Not expecting the sparkling water to be free, but just a simple "What would you like to drink?" would have probably sufficed.

The restaurant receives two stars (instead of just one) because my friend (Malaysian) and I were asked for feedback on the food, to which we gave an honest response. The waiter responded graciously by thanking us for the feedback and bringing us free drinks.

p.s. We had the vegan tasting menu. If you want a place that serves authentic Thai vegan food, I recommend Thai Vegan Kitchen or Peace Kitchen Kallio. For something that has a "fancier" atmosphere but still serves good Asian fusion dishes (Vietnamese / Thai), try Lie...

Real Southeast Asian person here and I felt disapointed. I think if you operated this kind of restaurant in Southeast Asia you wont be succeed.Not really authentic here. We had the menu 62 euros per person and felt so ripoff with the food quality. Not worthy at all. The whole menu with 5 dishes I just only like the beef curry a little bit (even though it is too sweet too), otherwise too much sugar in the pork dish, I felt like I was eating kind of dessert there not main dish and was wondering if the chef has mistakenly pour the whole bag of sugar there.This pork dish is popular in my country and if you said you are cooking the same cameralized pork dish like from Vietnam I can say that eating this dish can make you have diabete very soon and it is so wrong. The pork dish is also my comfort food so I can't accept this quality here at Farang. I would tell you there are so many Asian restaurants out there in Uusimaa which cooking the same with more real and authentic flavour. With the appetizers at the beginning I felt also the chef was too generous using lemon, if these are 2 signature dishes from Thailand, I would tell you, we have been in Thailand so much in our life but never taste any dishes that too sour like the salads we had today. Sorry to say, the mango salad in Thailand is never as that sour, and the way they made fish sauce together with the clam here I felt it is wrong too. I also do not like the attitude and serving way of the waitress for our table. She doesn't care too much to explain anything and the waiter doesn't know what he brought to us. We have been to the restaurant in the same chain Bronco, I would say at Bronco they serve you with more care and sincere. My Finnish husband said you should not go to an Asian restaurant operated by an white man. I guess he has his point. Of course my husband has been in Southeast Asia a lot and yes he can realize that the food quality here can't even compared with small Asian restaurant run by real Asian. But yes, with less money we still can enjoy authentic one somewhere, not in Farang. We won't come back any more...

It's been years since I've been to Farang and now we wanted to give it another try.

First the positives: the "new" venue looks great. Big windows and good quality sound system makes it feel nice and comfortable even though the tables are placed very close to each other. Also, our waitress was super nice and the wines included in the "sommelier menu" were good. Nothing special, but also nothing to complain about.

Then the negatives: most of the dishes in the classic tasting menu were ok, some were mediocre and the main dish of red curry tasted like what you would expect from a ready-made Thai curry paste. The service (apart from our nice waitress) was subpar: when we came in, we were led directly to our table. I had to get our coats and walk up some waiter to ask where I could hang them. Then she pointed to couple of locations but did not offer to take them. The guy who was handling the bookings and incoming patrons was mostly just standing there doing nothing. Why didn't he offer to take our jackets, or at least show us to the cloakroom first? Were we supposed to just hang our coats on the back of our seats or what? If you pay few hundred euros for a dinner, the least you would expect is to have your coats handled.

Also, a pro tip: when you serve a chilled cocktail, bring a coaster. That way the table won't be splashing with water by the time the customer finished the drink.

Three stars for being okay, which you would expect, but mediocre and overpriced

EDIT: Had to go back there because of a group dinner someone else organised. The experience was much worse than the last time. Most dishes tasted like nothing, there was too little per person and we left hungry. The service was confused. We ordered calvados, got served gin and when we complained they still told us it was calvados. A single espresso costs 4,70e. I've been to three-Michelin star restaurant, where the espresso costs like 2-3 euros.

Summary: Do not go there. There are far better restaurants with better pricing...