Ban's Restaurant — Restaurant in Ko Tao

At first I was a bit thrown off by a server who kind of ignored us while we wanted to just have a drink, but as I was in the restaurant a bit more I enjoyed it a lot more. As it is used by the diving instructors to give classes as well, it looks like the staff struggles to identify students and guests (which is quite hard I can imagine), often being handed a menu while waiting for the instructor as well as not getting 1 when trying to order food. But if you are able to get the attention of the staff they are, apart for a few exceptions, really nice and helpful. The food sometimes doesn't arrive at the same time but it does come pretty fast and I really enjoyed most of the dishes I had here. Okay the cheesecake wasn't the best and there was too much onion on the club sandwich but the fruit yoghurt bowl was really good with excellent price quality ratio. The club sandwich had really nice toasted bread, good chicken and tasted fresh and the "no name" vegetables with chicken was surprisingly one of my favourite dishes on the island. I understand the average guest doesn't care about these nuances but I think the restaurant has a lot of potential if it is able to seperate the bar from the restaurant and makes an effort to seperate the diving classes...

DO NOT EAT HERE! ❌

This has to be the worst place i have ever eaten in my life, the service was appalling. We ordered two starters and two mains with a side of fries. After taking the order, we waited 10 minutes for 2 cans of coke to be brought to the table, I then asked for two glasses of ice and waited 20 minutes whilst the waiter had his own dinner 🥲 by time the ice was brought the drinks were nearly finished.

One starter came out, immediately followed by the two mains, the second starter did not come and neither did the fries. After we finished our meal (I say finished but I had two slices of the stale pizza they served me) the second starter arrived, we told the waitress we did not want this now as we had finished our meals to which she responded by putting her hand in our faces.

Once we went to pay the bill we explained what had happened, to which we were met with a very rude and blunt response. We also put our phones and vape on the counter whilst paying and realised we walked out without the vape, we immediately went back and asked if they had seen it and they said no, that we left nothing. So all in all, terrible food, terrible service and they stole from us.

AVOID...

Unfortunately I can’t give this restaurant a review as good as I hoped, as after dinner I spent the evening being unwell from both ends (forgive my lack of a better term).

We waited around fifteen minutes before anybody came to offer us menus, and then amidst taking our order they disappeared to another table for five minutes before returning to us.

The food itself was a very strange taste, and although I (unfortunately) finished mine, my partner only managed a third of his meal. We have visited Thailand three times and are seasoned Thai cuisine eaters - we are used to the flavours in Thai food. Sadly, after eating my meal I knew it wasn’t sitting well in my stomach.

The drinks have to be ordered separately to your meal, and my drinks order was wrong twice. Despite the service, I politely thanked the staff for dining us before leaving. I don’t know if they are understaffed or why the service seems to be an ongoing issue here, but there are many improvements to be made.

It’s one forgiving factor is that the view of the sunset is great (but perhaps this can be viewed from...