Baan Rim Naam — Restaurant in Kyoto

Been eating at this restaurant for years now (once every few months). Quite heartbreaking to see that the food quality and service quality drop throughout the years, especially service quality.

When you come into the restaurant, THE first thing they will ask you is “how many people?” and whether you want to sit outside or inside. No smile, no hi, no welcome. It is like you are begging for a seat.

The Thai girl (who have worked here for many years) literally told the clients that “you must pay extra and must order at least a drink for outside seat!” with a loud voice and improper Japanese (considered rude by Japanese standard), her voice was so loud that literally everybody in the restaurant turned their head and looked at them.

I have ordered two dish, one stir fried and one friend rice. My rice arrived in 10 minutes but stir fried arrived almost 20 minutes after that. I was trying to have them together but ended up have to wait until my fried rice cooled down.

They don’t serve water until I reminded them after 5 minutes, no apology at all, it is like I have to ask to get it. And no refill what so ever. You have to ask them to refill water.

Not to mentioned the fried pineapple rice is bland. And very few pineapple, maybe 4-6 small tiny pieces? Stir friend soft shell crab is nice though as usual.

Unfortunately I will think twice about coming back again to this restaurant. My last 3-4 visits was not pleasant...

The food and ambience was good. However, we were appalled by the service. One of our side dishes was served about 10min into our dinner and this was made spicy rather than non-spicy as requested in our order. The staff offered to remake the dish for us, but we asked them to just cancel it as we were half way through our dinner and did not want to wait for the dish to be remade (after having already waited about 30min for our food). When paying the bill, we noticed the side dish had been included and asked for it to be removed since it was the incorrect order and we did not eat it. The owner very rudely insisted that we had to pay for it, stating that it was not possible to cancel a dish once it had been served and that since they had offered to remake it, it was our problem if we didn't want the dish anymore. We paid to avoid making a scene, but we were extremely upset with the principle of it and the rudeness...

The food is amazing, and reasonably priced. Highlights include the papaya salad, the hot and sour seafood soup, and the curries. Tofu is available as substitute. This place is good for vegans and vegetarians (our server was careful to check whether fish sauce was ok). Note: dishes marked as spicy are impressively hot!

Service was mixed, and the reason for the four-star rating: our first night we enjoyed warm and cheerful service; the next night we were mostly ignored. After a long wait, we had to flag them down to take our order, and the main dishes came out 30 min apart (and the salad appetizer was delivered last). That was quite frustrating, but the food was good. I’d recommend that they at least check in with the customer if service is taking longer...