Red Elephant — Restaurant in Waitematā

You can’t miss the red elephant located right outside the entrance. It is eye-catching and captures attention of passersby. I am a Thai food addict. I regularly eat Thai food and have eaten Thai food in many Asian countries as well as in the U.S. and Europe. I’ve always thought Thai food could do no wrong. So I was excited to try Red Elephant.

The beautiful decor gives a fine dining feel so I walked in with high expectations. Prices also suggested high-quality, unique dishes. Unfortunately, end products didn’t live up to the perception. I was actually okay with the smaller portion-sized dishes but almost every dish tasted the same. The vegetarian dishes were non-distinguishable. The Pad Thai was so mindlessly chopped that you wouldn’t even know you were eating noodles. Presentation of the chicken was gimmicky. The taste was not bad, but the chicken was so dry and so overcooked that it was like eating rubber chicken. For the fish, its taste was decent but again overcooked and presentation was off-putting to some. There’re so many ways to display the fish than to plate it like the chef just threw a dead fish on the plate and poured some sauce on the bottom half of it. Dessert (Banana Fritters) looked good but except for the apples, there was a strong artificial taste to it.

2 stars for the decor and the...

Booked dinner for my mums birthday. Our first visit..and now our last . We walked in or at least tried to and saw a lady rush towards us, me thinking ,how nice they are coming to open the door, she was coming to tell us to close the door coz its very cold according to her. How is a group of 6 supposed to enter without openng the door, because we havent got our apparating licence yet. I told her she was very rude and her response was that i had the door open wide, one side of the door was locked, the other one ,i held open for my elderly mother and father to walk through. She put me off straight away. Food wasnt anything remarkable ,our servers were nice, food took ages, over an hour after entrees. Overall im sure they have loyal patrons who get treated well and like the food but the woman who was the head person in a grey blouse , set the tone for the night. She never apologised. She is solely responsible for us never coming back or ever recommending them to anyone.but i do have a question for that idiotic woman...”how does one get into a place WITHOUT...

If I could give a zero star I would. The owner was so rude. Even though there was a miscommunication with the seating due to a big group, but he should’ve not act like that towards the other customers. I ask for a dessert menu and we were still deciding, he asked do you want the dessert or not we said wait and he said “guess not” and just snatched the menus from my friend’s hand and left. The other workers were so rude as well, we have ask for drinks menu to order some drinks and she said “hold up “in such an aggressive voice and never return. I understand that they would’ve been frustrated due to the confusion with the party host, but they are working in the hospitality industry they should not act like that and to other people that does not know what is going on. The food was so overprice for such a small amount on the plate. When I saw the price I thought it would be big enough to share around the table but the portion was so tiny. However, the drinks were good. Overall experience, would never go there again and would never recommend to...