Kaosarn — Restaurant in London

Having been Clapham locals for the last 10 years, Kaosarn came highly recommended – we love to support local businesses so my girlfriend and I went with a friend on Saturday night to try it out. The food was good – highly recommend the chicken satay and prawn dish, the chicken pad thai wasn’t fantastic but all in all a good dining experience until the end. When it came to paying for our meal, the restaurant claimed to only take cash, however they did not inform of this when we sat down – there is a small reference to this on the menu but I could not find any reference to this on their website. My girlfriend queried with a person (who we now assume to be the ‘owner’), whether they really did operate just in cash and asked if we could do a bank transfer instead as the cashpoint was quite a walk away and we were still finishing our drinks. In an instant, a kind waiter came over and produced a card machine which was great and allowed us to settle the bill without disrupting our evening. The ‘owner’ did not like the fact that we had paid for our meal by card and became incredibly aggressive towards us (especially towards my girlfriend who had queried the need for the cash payment). The ‘owner’ stood over the table, shouting so loudly that the whole restaurant fell silent and watched the ‘owner’ unleash a tirade of abuse towards my girlfriend who was just sat in her chair finishing her drink, she repeatedly called her ‘drunk’ and ‘evil’- then looked at her dead in the eyes and said ‘I’ll remember your evil face, you’re banned for life’. We were in complete shock so we stayed silent and this seemed to anger the ‘owner’ even more so they threw us out. For fear of receiving further abuse, we promptly left which meant we had to leave our drinks which we had paid for on the table. For clarity, we had almost shared a bottle of wine between 3 and eaten a full meal so no one at the table was drunk, not even over the legal driving limit – it was also c.8pm.

I have never witnessed such appalling behaviour from restaurant staff, it was unnecessarily aggressive, threatening and publicly humiliating that I was in two minds about whether to report the incident to the police for harassment/ public order offence. Luckily my girlfriend saw the humour in the situation and her conclusion was that the ‘owner’ must be suffering from some sort of mental instability as their behaviour was so outrageous. We will laugh about this in years to come but we were treated like criminals, our only crime was paying by credit/ debit card…

STAY AWAY FROM THIS RESTAURANT, THERE ARE SO MANY WONDERFUL LOCAL BUSINESSES WHICH YOU CAN SUPPORT THAT WOULD ACTUALLY WELCOME YOUR CUSTOM!

P.s. Thank you for your comment and admitting that everything I have stated above is correct. You may not need our support and you may think my girlfriend is 'bad' or 'rude' but under section 4.a) of the public order act 1986:

(1)A person is guilty of an offence if, with intent to cause a person harassment, alarm or distress, they— (a)uses threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour, or disorderly behaviour

Please bear this in mind when dealing with your customers in the future, I will...

As a sister to the successful family run business on Coldharbour Lane in Brixton, Kaosarn has quickly gained a reputation as an excellent Thai restaurant. Quality in abundance and flavours to match, this surprisingly good value restaurant will leave you with plenty of money left in your bank account and a giddy warm feeling to boot.

The best thing is it really holds a genuine authenticity of Thai cuisine. It doesn’t seem to placate to the Western ‘ideals’ of things like Prawn Crackers…“Oh no, we don’t do that here” as if to say, those awful crunchy things are far beneath us. We only cook the real-deal here.

And quite right they do, as we found out when our main courses arrived. The red Thai curry had all five elements of spicy, sour, sweet, salty and bitter present and correct to confuse the senses into delight. The Pad Thai was also a triumph. I’d have to stick my neck out and say it was the best I’ve had due to the succulent noodles, heavy dose of lime juice, perfectly cooked prawns, plus the pile of crushed peanuts and chillies to sprinkle on at your leisure.

Whenever we go out to eat, we’re eagerly looking around the room to look at what the rest of the clientèle have chosen; all portions for all dishes looked decent and smelt excellent.

Another other predominant theme of Kaosarn is urgency. The urgency reflects London as a whole perfectly. Fast, brash, in your face and glorious. Now this might not be to everyone’s tastes, but for a table of 2 you’re given 1 hour before you have to give it up, for parties of 4 or more you’re permitted an hour and a half. I personally had very little issue with it, if you are going to behave that way you better make darn sure the food is up to scratch, and it certainly is fantastic. Every table was taken and there were people queuing for the next sitting.

The starters are on average £6-7, and mains range from £7-13, all very affordable. As it is also BYOB place this keeps the final bills very low indeed.. we had two starters and two mains to share, and that came to less than £30. Bargain.

If there is a criticism, it was the starters; we had the battered prawns and fish cakes. The batter on the prawns was nice and light but the accompanying ginger sauce didn’t pack enough punch and so the overall effect was a little taste free in comparison to the rest of the dishes. The fish cakes were good and the sauce for this was the real winner for me with crushed peanuts and coriander in the mix.

I’ll definitely be going again however, and do highly...

I accompanied my 7 friends here for dinner, I did not eat as I am deathly allergic to peanuts and shellfish and the menu prominently features ingredients in most dishes.

I am quite risk adverse and do not feel comfortable in eating in such establishments, due to the possibility of cross-contamination but accompanied my friends for a nice dinner.

The boorish owner accosted me, said it was insulting that I don’t want to eat her food, and told us this was the last time we can eat here (we are not coming back????) if someone isn’t eating as it is insulting to her business.

People of older generations often complain that younger people have no manners, and yet never in my life have I ever been treated so poorly at an establishment. This completely ruined the vibe of dinner, regardless of if the meal was good or not it was ruined by the disgusting attitude of the owner who thinks it’s acceptable to yell at strangers (and patrons???) in public.

I actively discourage anyone to eat here or support this business.

Rather than being so divinely self absorbed and arrogant, taking it as a personal attack that I (and others like me) can not eat your food as an insult, acknowledge, as a culinary professional that by no fault of my, or anyone else's I am inherently barred from experiences others get to revel in. I would love to sit with my mates and enjoy some Thai food, but unlike them. I get the crushing feeling that one wrong bite, will end up with me dead.

I do not feel bad for having allergies.

I do not care that you felt insulted that I would not eat your food, when I physically cannot.

I do not care that in the last '13' years as you so proclaimed that no one has died at your establishment (I do not know who you are and this means nothing to me).

I DO care that you publicly embarrassed and shamed over something I have no control over.

To anyone reading, I hope you have a lovely day, unless you are the 'owner' of this business, then from the bottom of my heart I hope you can learn to exhibit a modicum of kindness and compassion toward people who cannot change immutable aspects of their life. I would give you 0 stars if I could.

Coldest...