Çok Çok Thai Restaurant — Restaurant in Beyoğlu

How's this place has any sort of Michelin certification is beyond me.

Crowded when we arrived, we were shoe horned into a table upstairs, the evening began well with the waiter kicking the leg of my chair as he stumbled nay bumbled past.

The menus eventually arrived, evidently mined from the pre historic mire that passed for a restaurants organisational hub.

Clearly items of such beauty, we were given over half an hour to admire them. The rips in the pages should have warned us.

Given the business and the now late hour, 8.45, we ordered only two mains.

And we were left sitting, albeit with a beer to nurse. Our experience was enhanced by the slurping cud-chewing table beside us, neither of whom raised their faces from their mobile phones throughout their repast.

And so finally the piece de resistance arrived, banged loudly on a table behind me, and our Fawlty Towers water excelled himself.

He plonked a bowl of food, and a bowl of rice before each, turning each (round) bowl through several degrees to achieve pointless and indiscernible symmetry. Then he was distracted by the table beside us and their bill. There was no cutlery on the table at all, so we were left to admire the food, and note there was no obvious smell. Behind me, our bottle of wine grew cobwebs. After another eon, he deigned to supply knives and forks, but the wine remained unopened, whereupon my dinner guest politely asked for it. He turned and gestured for assistance, to be told by the other waitress it wasn't her job and walked off

The space was so tight, he then shoved his arse into my plate as he tried to persuade the adjacent table that his credit card did indeed have a pin number and could he put it in.

I was ready to open the bottle myself . Grumbling, and at long last we could eat. The food was insipid, I've eaten in Thailand many many times and in European restaurants frequently, and this didn't compare, resembling a poor man's McDonalds. The UPF was super sweet, designed for the American palate, not a more savoury European one. Eminently forgettable.

Two Turkish coffees were the highlight. In fairness he offered dessert, but the experience thus far was so sublimely anarchistic, we declined setting our sights hopefully on the exit door.

Now came the bill. Oh wait bills. The first was wrong, over charged by three dishes and two margaritas we didn't have.

The second was wrong, two drinks removed but dishes remained.

The third was wrong, an extra salad.

The fourth bill was wrong, an extra side. We just paid and left, for a stiff drink to...

The quality of the Thai food here is usually very good. This time it wasn’t - dry steak salad, phad thai saltless, unfathomably, and any request for “extra spicy” (as in, authentic Thai) was met with fish sauce and chili, which completely altered the taste of the food. Another strange thing that often happens here is that they skip the egg on the phad thai. About 50% of the time. Also, their glasses of wine are tiny. They measure about 7 “glasses” to a bottle. Definitely order the bottle - priced at about 4x market price - if you don’t want your glass constantly running out. The wine qualities are good.

The issue this time though, was the rushing and turning away of tables, and one server just blaming another. To me, these are restaurant crimes and their “Michelin 2023” sign/status should be revoked for this alone. They claim to close at 11pm. The sign says 11pm, so does the internet. I was sitting outside and I watched three tables turned away prior to 10:30pm. One mentioned, around 10:20, that they had traveled specially to come there. I had arrived around 9:30. By 10:30 I was not done. No one mentioned kitchen closing to me. 10-15 minutes prior to 11pm they came with the bill. “We want to close the case.” I mentioned watching the customers turned away and me not being told the kitchen was closed. The young man, short brown ponytail, blamed another server. “Sorry, it’s the women” he said. The women here wearing Thai clothing (the non-Asians don’t) and the very women who are always the most welcoming and kind. In fact, three times here it’s been male attendants - wearing whatever they want - who have been arrogant about recommendations, unamenable to easy requests (eg extra vegetables), and blaming towards other staff. This restaurant has decent food quality if not consistent, eco-friendly packaging, but they need a lesson in basic customer service, sexism, and...

Omg what a gem! Fiancé and I had dinner for NYE and it was such an incredible experience.

We were greeted by EXTREMELY friendly staff, and throughout the whole dinner they made us to feel super welcome still giving us the space needed to celebrate. We were both impressed how amazingly trained they're.

The menu had a lot of interesting things to order. As starters we chose fish cake (it was good but the lemongrass and Thai basil flavors was a bit too overwhelming - we wouldn't order again) + shrimp tempura, which was delightful! Must point out both appetizers came with basic sauces, such as soy sauce and bottled sweet Chilli sauce. I wish they were a bit more thoughtful with that.

For main he order blackpepper sea bass and I got honey glazed salmon. Both of our main courses were prepared with high quality and fresh ingredients, BUT they were quite bland.

To be fair, we were so impressed with the staff treatment, serving time, courtesy, ambience and etc, that we didn't care much that our main courses were not as flavorful as the menu description suggested.

We had a bottle of wine and that my friends was one of the highlights of our night! Temperature of the wine was PERFECT and we just love it!

To finish off I ordered matcha cheesecake, absolutely 10/10. So delicious!!!! The ice cream they served together wasn't made in house but sure was good quality because tastes good. Fiancé had a fried banana, I know super classic and almost cliche lol but it was also fried to perfection!

Bottom line, go and give it a try! We loved the place, staff and ambience so much that we will give it another try.

Hopefully after reading this long menu I hope their management team care a bit more about main courses and sauces, but apart from that I...