Bintang — Restaurant in London

So me and my wife went to bintang on Friday night to break our fast, first impressions, nice small boutique style restaurant with a rustic look, not much money gone into the decor but it goes with the theme of the restaurant so bintang does pull this off well, its a very cool restaurant if i must say. we arrived and I gave my name as a table was booked earlier that day via their website, no tables where free, but the manager advised he will get one ready for us, which he then politely asked a table of 2 girls, if they could kindly leave as they had finished their food and others are waiting to be seated, they took this well, but hooray i got my table. They provided us with dates and fruits to break our fast which was very thoughtful. starters where very nice, i really enjoyed the korean wings (very tasty) and the vege spring rolls which tasted freshly made! the prawns i ordered with potatoe where nice and perfectly cooked however a big let down was the melted cheese as it appeared to be the square slice cheese you get in packets, this bought this starter down heavily as it got sickening

when the mains came, mine looked very nice and tasted delicious aswell (chicken katsu curry), my wife ordered the beef pad thai, she hated it. we where honest and told our waitress (May) and asked 'does this have coconut in it as it has a strong coconut aroma because my wife hates coconut and this wasnt mentioned anywhere on the menu'. May the waitress said that it shouldnt do as it should be sweet, sour and spicey all at once but she advised she will try our meal her self and give her thoughts, she took the plate and came back and advised that she sincerly sorry but the pad thai should not taste like this at all and that the chef may have missed or added an extra ingredient/sauce by accident. she offered to give us something else instead which was chicken and waffles, however she bought us back another freshly made pad thai, i think the chicken and waffles may have finished for the day, My wife didnt really eat this second pad thai as she was put off by the first one so that was a bummer.

We was going to go elswhere for dessert as we where craving something more chocolatey and sweet however May came over to our table after clearing up our mains with a japanese style ice cream and said that the managment had given this to us on the house because of the pad thai issue. This was a very nice gesture and shows they went out of their way above and beyond for us as customers.

i would reccomend this place as their food is at a good price, freshly made, qwerky restaurant , great atmosphere, vibes and great staff, i cant praise May enough for her customer service skills hence why i left a tip which i hardly do in restaurants. great staff great location great vibe, especially when they dim the lights down, defo adds to the ambience.

big thumbs up from me, 5 stars because even though the pad thai did mess up they made up for it in other areas, if they hadnt done this it wouldve been a 3...

I had previously been here several times with my partner and had always enjoyed the food and the BYOB element. Service was a little slow but they always seem understaffed so that was understandable.

However, my last experience left a bitter taste (not due to the food which if I am honest, is delicious).

My partner had booked a table for 9 people a week in advance and when we arrived, they were not ready and actually had to ask the people sitting at our table if they could hurry up and leave (and they were NOT happy about that)... Meanwhile, we had to wait outside until the people had finished their drinks. It was perhaps a 15 minute wait and we had some wine, so not too bad but still irritating.

Bintang then claimed booking was for 6 people because they were a table short (made a bit of a big deal out of it) and my partner had to show them the confirmation email to confirm it was actually 9. I was starting to get irritated at this point especially since it was about 25 minutes after we had booked and after screwing up already, they were not exactly doing well at making amends.

After everyone was finally seated, I eventually had to go and fetch menus for the table myself (and bring over some wine glasses). We first saw menus half an hour after the time we had booked. At this point, I was hoping they might give us a few complimentary starters to make amends... But no.

Admittedly, when we did order, food came out in good time and was tasty. However, when we got the bill they had charged us for 9 bottles of wine rather than the 5 that we had brought with us.

I went up to speak to our waitress (who I thought was also the manager) and mentioned that considering the service had been pretty poor from the start and we were being overcharged anyway, I'd like them to take some money off the bill. She told me she couldn't do that and when I asked why not, she told me that she needed to speak to my partner and then flat out ignored me for the rest of the time we were there (she literally would not even look at me). She told my partner that they could take off the service charge but that they were charging per person on alcohol rather than per bottle...

Bare in mind, they made no mention of this to my partner when she made the booking and were not prepared to take anything off despite the poor service we had experienced. In the end my partner wanted to get on with her birthday celebrations so we paid up and went on our way.

I'd also point out that the waitress who ignored me was not the manager (although I believed she was at first). He was hiding in the kitchen and never made an appearance to settle anything.

I am not one to complain often or even write reviews often, but I felt pretty upset about the way we were treated there and pretty disappointed because I'd always had a good experience previously. Unfortunately, I won't be eating there again because of...

I'm so very sad to share the woeful experience we had at Bintang on Thursday 16 February 2017. We've been going to Bintang since about 2012. We noticed standards beginning to slip about two years ago. We love their food but the service has been absolutely appalling the last four times we've visited. In the past, we've grumbled we won't be back but after Thursday, we definitely will not be wasting our time and money at Bintang in the future. On our recent visit, there were two waitresses and while they were both very nice and friendly, they really did not have a clue about how to serve. Our waitress took our order - we ordered the King Prawn Pad Thai, beef short rib "Gao Baos", crispy duck pancakes and lamb ribs. The food arrived about twenty-five minutes later, minus the pancakes and minus the lamb ribs. When we asked about the lamb ribs, the other waitress who brought us our food told us they were not available. She brought us the menu and asked us to choose an alternative; in the meantime we asked her for the pancakes (to go with the crispy duck she had brought over.) We had to ask her six (6) times to bring us the pancakes. When she finally brought them and she actually recommended to us we should go for the beef short rib sisig, she then came back to tell us they were not available either. In the meantime, our food was going cold so we decided to eat what we had and go. To be fair to the waitress who took our order, after, when she asked my husband what he thought of the ribs that she had actually recommended and we told her we didn't have them, she was genuinely surprised and apologised, as she had not been told by the kitchen staff. So clearly there was a lack of communication between the waiting staff and the kitchen staff. From what we experienced and could see, they are very understaffed, the waitresses were not even aware of what was available, and what were the specials of the day; there was no clear direction; both waitresses were picking up from each other and because they were not properly aligned, they were not able to deliver good service. I noted both waitresses on separate occasions walked away from customers, while they were still giving their orders. One positive was that the "Gao Bao" was lovely, as always, but I found the King Prawn Pad Thai almost sickly sweet and the texture was, for lack of a better description, slimy. I wasn't able to finish it. The crispy duck was dry. All in all, it was a thoroughly disappointing meal. Two very unhappy customers, who fell in love with Bintang's "Gao Baos" all those years ago but even those gems are not enough to ever...