Thai Me Up Restaurant Uptown — Restaurant in Cagayan de Oro

I love Thai food so whenever I'm visiting a new city I always check out the nearest Thai restaurant. My favourite dish is a Thai red chicken curry so imagine my shock when the waiter said I cannot have red chicken curry as they only have red curry with beef. (They did have green chicken curry on the menu so obviously they had the chicken)

I advised the waiter that I had been to dozens of Thai restaurants over 20 years both in The Philippines & overseas & I had never ever been to a Thai restaurant which did not serve red chicken curry which is a signature Thai dish.

I then suggested to him obviously you have the chicken so why can't you just replace the beef with chicken?

He said no they cannot do that! After I asked why not & pleaded some more he advised that he will see what he can do? At this stage I just said if its too difficult I will take the beef red curry. After approx 20 mins the food arrived, he actually managed to get the red chicken curry & glazed chicken for my wife & son.

The curry sauce was almost dry, brownish green in colour, nothing whatever resembling a red curry which usually comes with a nice orange colored soup with a few basil leaves on top.

The taste was totally bland, no flavour whatever, I could not even taste the coconut cream! It's seems Thai Me Up is more geared to a fast food takeaway with all the Grab & Food Panda drivers coming & going. The food is most likely precooked earlier & reheated otherwise the waiter would not find it so difficult to exchange beef for chicken??

The water provided had a bad taste & when we asked the waiter if it was tap water he advised it was filtered? This is just not good enough considering they charged 450 php for the Thai chicken curry, same price as for the beef. Their menu prices appear to be mostly 100 php more than quoted on their website? A small portion of rice about the size of a tablespoon was 60 php so we had to have 2/3 each.

I don't mind paying any amount for good quality food but this place is just way overpriced with poor quality food. If you are hungry, don't care about the taste & want fast food to takeaway maybe? However If you want to dine in & taste beautiful authentic Thai food bursting with flavour you definitely won't...

I love the staff letting us dine outside with our extra companion. The tables were laid out well and the thai art prints served as a good backdrop while enjoying the outside natural light.

The menu options were little, and highly priced. Which is unusual for thai food - if authentic, should be affordable. These are the type of foods that are sold on small stalls all over thailand and are eaten daily by everyone.

So my problem is this - if you're charging 250 to 350+ for dishes, you better make it well. And you better have exceptional decor and design. The chairs were wrought iron garden chairs, The spring rolls were sparse, and tasted like what you could get at a hundred other karinderya places in the city for 1/5th the price.

The bagoong rice was fragrant, well cooked. 2 stars.

The pad thai was lacking in balance - too savory. It should be salty, sweet, and sour. The lime was dry and stale, I couldn't squeeze anything out of it. Again priced too high, executed poorly. 1 star

The green curry was good. Needed more protein, the serving size of chicken was like a few grams cut in small chunks. 3 stars.

Overall 2 stars for this place - again, if you're charging more than the usual restaurants around the city, you better step up the food, and the decor and ambience. Mediocre food at a small space with tarpaulin decor and iron chairs. Thankfully, the staff made the...

Service: poor. Of the 5 people who served us, at least 3 were in training. The problem was, they do not appear to be receiving any training. No menu knowledge, no service knowledge, no attention to the table. At one point, 3 or 4 waiters and the manager had an impromptu "meeting" (argument) just a couple of meters from the table. All of them ignored the dirty plates on our table.

Food: it was OK. Vegetarian pad thai was average. Tofu satay was tasty. Fresh spring rolls were OK, nothing special. Cucumber/apple/mint juice was incredibly over sweetened to the point it was almost undrinkable.

Ambiance: OK, just...