XO Thai Eatery — Restaurant in Devonport-Takapuna

I hate to do this, because I've thoroughly enjoyed my previous dining experiences at XO, but tonight's experience was disgraceful. I won't bother writing a full breakdown of the events, rather I'll just outline the problems. We ordered a dozen oysters (9 fresh and 3 grilled). When the fresh oysters arrived about 30 minutes after we ordered them, they were accompanied by a soy sauce rather than the vinaigrette and shallots as specified in the menu. I thought that it might have just been a dark vinaigrette so I poured some into an oyster and gobbled it down. It was pretty foul tasting with soy sauce so I asked the waitress if she could exchange the soy sauce for vinaigrette. She was very apologetic and took away the soy sauce. She came back a few minutes later with soy sauce again. We again sent it back and again it came back with soy sauce with a little bit of vinegar added topped with spring onions. We didnt want to send it back again so we asked the waitress if we could take the oysters home so we could make our own vinaigrette. She understandably said they have a policy of not letting people take oysters home in fear they won't eat them the same day and potentially get sick. So we requested that they be removed from our bill. She said of course and we left our table to go and pay. When we got to the front of house to pay, the lady serving us had the nerve to say "I was willing to not charge for the oysters, but I talked to our chef and he said that this is our style of vinaigrette". This is shocking for 2 reasons : We've been to this restaurant a handful of times and have had their oysters multiple times The sauce was purely soy sauce and anyone with taste buds would be able to tell that! She then went on to say that nobody else had complained about it and again repeated that's just their style of vinaigrette. I demanded that she remove the charge from our bill and thankfully she did. She then told us that we shouldn't order their oysters from them again if we didn't like them to which we replied that we won't...

Absolutely disappointing experience at this restaurant after booking through First Table. I called well ahead to let them know we would have one extra person, and we were happy to pay the full price. However, upon arrival, we were met with a rude greeting, being asked if we wanted to order drinks or leave. It set a negative tone right from the start.

Things didn’t improve from there. After ordering, a staff member approached us in a stressful and rude manner, repeatedly insisting that we pay full price—something we had already agreed to. It made us feel incredibly uncomfortable.

The food itself was equally disappointing. We were served raw chicken, which we had to send back. When it was returned, it was overcooked to the point of being inedible. To make matters worse, the dishes we ordered without spice (due to our friends' allergies) came out ridiculously spicy. The Pad Thai was a disaster—watery, flavorless, and the prawns tasted terrible, like dirt.

All in all, it was a very frustrating experience. Poor service, rude staff, and food left a bad taste in our mouths (literally and figuratively). Given the poor treatment and quality of the meal, we won’t be returning and certainly wouldn’t recommend this restaurant to anyone. If you can’t provide decent food and good service and make clients this uncomfortable, you shouldn’t be on...

Went to a Thai place. Had the beef Massaman curry. It was... incredible. I mean, properly good. The beef was so soft I thought it had been bullied into submission. Just lay there... gave up. Like Piers Morgan in a spelling bee.

The sauce? Creamy. Nutty. Complex. Like Karl Pilkington, if he was edible

Now — Tiger Beer. Good. Actually really good. Crisp, cold, refreshing. But let’s not get carried away. It's not Chang, is it? Chang’s the big boy. Chang’s like the Liam Gallagher of beers — slightly unhinged, full of character, possibly banned in some countries. Tiger’s more like the bloke at work who’s decent at quizzes. Reliable. Pleasant. But you’re not thinking about him when you go to bed, are you?

So yeah — curry: incredible. Tiger good, not great. Changs the king. The Mufasa of lagers. Tiger’s more Simba... still good, just needs to...