Apple's Cafe Bar & Thai Cuisine — Restaurant in Solothurn

To be fair, I'll start with the positives for this establishment, as there were several good points. The location for this place right up the street from Zeitglockenturm was great. Its location in the heart of Altstadt contributed to the nice atmosphere for this fine little shop. The proprietor was generally very nice and polite, but I will return to this point below because there was a flipside. She was also the only person working and did a reasonably efficient job with her service (she was also my waitperson).

There were only two things on the dine-in lunch menu. I chose the Green Curry Chicken, which was very tasty. The portion was also nicely right-sized.

The price was reasonable considering it was Switzerland. The total for my main with a sparkling water to drink was CHF 21 and change. I thought this was a decent value.

I suppose my complaint about my visit has as much to do with rushed policies as it has to do with the proprietor. In general, at the time I was in Switzerland, a QR code indicating vaccine status was supposed to be shown to stay in hotels, eat indoors at restaurants, etc. However, the process was implemented without the infrastructure being fully in place. Because the infrastructure had not been created for non-Europeans to declare and upload their vaccine status, the workaround until October 10 of 2021 was to show on one's phone the Swiss government statement declaring a temporary injunction for this policy along with one's proof of vaccination (my Swiss colleague had to call on my behalf for this information when I arrived...it was not easily extracted from published web statements). This workaround was to serve as the equivalent to a QR code.

I tried executing this manner of compliance with the proprietor at this establishment but all she heard was that I had no QR code. She refused to read the Swiss government's statement that I was showing her on my phone. I had some level of sympathy for her consternation considering the general confusion surrounding the situation. But this solicitude disappeared when she declared that she did not speak English (which we had been doing to that point). I offered to change the verbiage to German but she apparently had a temporary lapse in understanding that language as well. She told me I could be served at an outdoor table. It was a bit on the chilly side and I preferred to be inside, but this was clearly a non-winnable battle. My practical choices were to eat outside or leave. Her obdurance cost her a couple of rating stars in my view (the fact that she kept a smile on her face and a reasonable tone of voice kept me from deducting more). That's why the rating of "3", which otherwise would have been a "4" or...

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Wir haben hier schon viele Male gegessen, aber es ist schon einige Jahre her. Früher haben wir es immer genossen, aber was für eine riesige Enttäuschung war es, als wir diese Woche zum Mittagessen eingekehrt sind. Es gab nur wenige Mittagsgerichte zur Auswahl und ich habe gesehen, dass sie seit unserem letzten Besuch ihren Kochbereich anders eingerichtet hat, damit sie schneller sein kann. Zunächst dachte ich noch, das sei eine gute Idee, damit sie nicht jede Mahlzeit frisch in der Küche zubereiten muss.

Aber als das Essen an unseren Tisch kam und ich ein Stück Huhn probierte, war es absolut das zäheste Stück Huhn, völlig ungenießbar und nicht zu kauen. Es wirkte so, als hätte sie das Huhn einfach nur in Wasser gekocht, es dann mit den Nudeln, ein paar Karotten und etwas Sauce vermischt und das Ganze als Pad Thai serviert.

Mein Mann hatte das Garnelen-Pad-Thai, und als ich eine seiner Garnelen probierte, hatten sie diesen unangenehmen „fischigen“ Geschmack.

Eine solche Enttäuschung für ein Lokal, das früher ein schöner Ort in Solothurn war, um thailändisches Essen...

Perhaps she was having a bad day, it is not easy to serve customers & cook all by herself. Perhaps she has forgotten putting fish sauce and other Thai spices which makes Thai food to Thai food. But what I had was not Thai food, but some Asian food without...