Giggling Squid - Clifton — Restaurant in Bristol

I have ordered thai red curry and my partner had a lunch tapas starter with 4 smallers dishes (don't remember exactly but it included prawns, some kind of small salad, fried rice with pinapple and green curry with beef), morning glory and giggling wings.

Our dishes arrived really quick, we have waited maybe 10 minutes. Immeditely we have asked for chopsticks. Waitress disappeared for 10 minutes and came with the cheapest possible take away chopsticks. It's odd that Giggling Squid is serving dishes which is common to eat by chopsticks like pad thai or some types of noodles and they don't have any better chopsticks.

My thai red curry was good but nothing above average. My partners' all 4 small dishes were dissapointing: the small salad was untasty (it was a weird combination of vegetable which I never experienced before), prawns were alright, fried rice wasn't fried (also was missing egg and there was a single piece of pinnaple), and the green curry had 3 small pieces of beef.

Additional 2 starters which we have ordered: giggling wings had glazed sauce but it wasn't enough to fully cover them and it was way too sweet. Morning glory was OK.

All dishes were overpriced (specially the tapas lunch set for £19 which half of it we have left because it wasn't tasty at all) but the most ridicules price was for morning glory. Literally 2 small spoons of vegetable with sauce and garlic for £7.5.

During whole meal no one asked us if everything is fine, if we need anything and if there is any problem with any dish.

In totally the whole meal cost us £51 + additional 10% service (which we almost didn't receive). It's really high price for that size of dishes, quality of food and totally...

Maybe me and Our Eddie don’t get out much, but we ended up giggling like kids at the name of this restaurant (honestly never heard of it before now). What with him being a bit on the conservative (small c) side when spice is involved, I was pleased to see how adventurous he was thinking by initially going for a red curry. I suggested he try one of the fusion choices on the menu, with a taste of Thai without going full Phuket - if you get my drift. Well, we were placed next a large table of mostly middle aged blokes talking IT and behind me, another table of blokes talking over each other, getting louder and louder, so much so I turned round and gave one my Paddington stare. That told him.

Usually, I’ve a big appetite and tiny stomach but threw caution to the wind and had pork dumplings and he had salmon bites on leaves, which I told him you could eat in one go, leaf and all. We split these, and omg the salmon bites were gorgeous.

For the mains, I had hake and he had two types of steak, both dripping in Thai flavours. Our wine was ok, not much to choose from, it was Ozzie Pinot Grigio. We even had a dessert and a coffee. All in all, around £120. Not bad.

The toilets were a bit poky, so small and uncomfortable to have some right outside the door waiting as I’m doing me business.

Most covers were around 7-8pm so when we finished so did everyone else, trying to get someone’s attention to get the bill was impossible. It was like they switched off. Had to go find them and interrupt their chat. All in all, it was ok. Other thing to note - deliveroo was in an out by the dozen. Probs best...

I don’t like to give negative reviews, but this experience I cannot ignore. I ate here during lockdown and placed the order for collection, spending in excess of £130.

As per any online order, a time is listed for collection, which was 45 minutes. Upon arriving I can see this was a busy night for the Giggling Squid which was good to see the community supporting local businesses during lockdown.

I waited for an additional 15 minutes before querying where my order was within those waiting… I got no solid answer and was told my order was on the way.

A further 20 minutes had passed before I further queried where my food was and again told “it was on its way” - I’m now waiting for 35 minutes plus the 45 minutes before setting off to collect my meal. I could see Deliveroo orders being heavily prioritised over standard direct orders - this surprised me!

What I found most frustrating is at any point the Giggling Squid could have easily advised me the actual length of time I was due to wait until i received my order but chose to ignore this option and instead made me wait for 1 hour and 40 minutes (+45 minutes) for my actual meal in the freezing cold weather (It was February). To say I’m disappointed is an understatement, and particularity because I had eaten here a few times before and found the service and staff very good. When I finally got home to serve the food, it was cold, having clearly sat on the side before being brought out for me.

Looking back - I should have cancelled the order and placed it elsewhere to a business that values and treats its...