Lai Thai Bistro — Restaurant in Whau

We were in the area decide to try Disappointing with crab cake didn’t taste like crab, tasted like batter fried, served with tiny tiny tiny bowl of sticky sweet syrup, we ordered chilli sauce served in tiny tiny tiny dish charged $2, it’s not the price but it should be just complemented. We ordered wok duck and sizzling beef was quite nice. Deep fried ice cream for $12.50 is steep but it was actually nice in filo pastry. Ladies that served us was very attentive that we were still eating entree and in the middle while we were eating, she interrupted us to order main meal ( not impressed) I believe it is not the waitress fault, they should have been trained proper etiquette. The other waitress was very attentive in topping up Our glass with water few times. I think the food is nice, but if they serve a tiny sticky sauce that you don’t like, they should just complement you for swapping with chilli sauce,, other than that staff need to be trained when to interrupt.. I will be keen to try other Thai restaurants in the...

The good - friendly staff, reasonable prices, fresh ingredients. Good soup

To improve: understaffed, very long wait time till soup and again till mains. Ordered my dish spicy, it wasn't at all. My noodles slightly undercooked, my wife's duck curry too salty, my daughter's noodles had undercooked kūmara.

Thriving takeaway sales seem to be detrimental to food quality, kitchen is obviously struggling with workload. Maybe we hit a bad night, the place has potential to be much better.

When the waitress asked the perfunctory how was your meal she obviously didn't care to hear an answer - my reply of "so-so" did not prompt further inquiry, which any discerning business should do.

To cap it off when we asked two half eaten dishes to be put into take home containers they only did one and threw the other away despite a clear request.

Overall - we would not recommend it or go back for...

Am soo dissapointed :( I'm new to the area and wanted an authentic Thai dish. After receiving, I instantly knew There was something missing.flavour wasn't well balanced as you would expect with thai food..I ordered medium-high spice- which would normally knock me off my feet- but this didn't have any heat. The curry was light in flavor dull in color and the vegetables had a steamed consistency- not bright crisp or fresh as you would expect. Pad thai was OK but once again lacked flavor. Chicken in both dishes were tough slightly overcooked- i feel like this thai menu has been altered to fit a western palate and lacked in authentic cooking and flavor methods. To me it was so bad that I would personally want my 60 dollars back as it was a treat I normally would only do once in a blue moon. The restaurant seating area was clean and staff were...