The Hungry Buddha — Restaurant in London

I'm giving this place three stars because even though the food was pretty good, the overall experience wasn't, especially with the delivery driver. It was my wife's birthday and we couldn't go out to eat because of the COVID situation, so we ordered takeaway Thai because she loves Thai food.

The ordering process through Just Eat was fine but when the driver came to drop the food off, things went wrong. We live in a gated block, the driver buzzed the main gate and I let him up. When he got to the door of the flat he just dumped the food on the doorstep - fair enough given the virus situation - but he just walked off without a word, no courteous "enjoy your meal" or "have a good evening", nothing. I thought at the time maybe he was in a bit of a bad mood. I didn't have time to give him the gate exit code because I didn't have shoes on to go outside and he'd already gone. A few drivers are regulars and already know the gate code, so I figured he already knew it.

After a few minutes I got a phone call, it was the driver. He said he needed to get out. I told him he should have waited but he just walked off to which he shouted, "you didn't give me the **ing gate code". I immediately hung up. This development has six blocks who all share the same gate, it's normally not more than 2-3 minutes before someone comes in/out. Many a time I've gone down to let a driver out to find they've already left. The driver called me again but I didn't answer: I didn't want to be sworn at again or for my wife's birthday to be ruined by an argument. I assume he got out fine since that was the last I heard about it.

I complained to the restaurant who were apologetic. A few mins later I got a call, I think from the manager, who said they would do an investigation, but I haven't heard anything since. I told the manager that I had had very stressful jobs in the past but I had never spoken to anyone like that. The restaurant confirmed that the driver was employed by them rather than sub-contracted through Deliveroo or someone else.

The food was pretty good but the overall experience wasn't. I probably wouldn't order from them again, considering there are many other Thai delivery places. This is a shame since this one driver's actions have lost any future business from me and created this review, which would have been more...

I'm from India and live in London. By relegion, I'm vegetarian. However, chicken is the only exception I make, especially when I travel on work (and no, four leaves with some carrots and cucumber don't sum up a vegetarian meal from where I come from!). My initial exposure to Thai food have been in (upscale) Thai restaurants in India. Each one of them was great but I guess the taste was modified a bit to suit the Indian palate. However, when I moved to UK and tried a few Thai restaurants in UK and W.Europe, I was just appalled. The taste was nothing close to what I had eaten before, not even remotely in the vicinity of being close to what I was expecting. Almost every dish had a 'fishy' smell to it (I guess they used fish oil for everything) and there was no other taste except salt, mostly.

So with this experience, I was a friend's house last weekend (27-Nov-16), and he ordered for some Thai food for all of us from Hungry Buddha (via the HungryHouse app). Without too much expectations, I ordered for some Chicken Satay and Chicken Red Curry (sort of my staple order when it comes to Thai food). Firstly, the delivery was quick, 30 mins. Also, I was just blown away by how tasty the food was (and this was without giving any instructions to the chef, etc etc, just via the app). The chicken was succulent with no nasty after taste, and the curry was just brilliant. My wife and my friends still can't believe how much I liked the food, they still think I'm being sarcastic since they know I don't prefer Thai for the aforementioned reasons.

Anyway, the food was excellent, thats what matters. I haven't been to the restaurant but I do look forward to visiting them or at least ordering from...

(To contexualise the below review, i would like to say that i have never felt the need to complain about food/service from a restaurant in my 27 year existence) The food from the 'Hungry Buddha' was quite possibly the worst restaurant/takeaway experience of my life! Unfortunately, I decided to order a variety of seafood -starter consisting of fish cakes and calamari and a main of seafood pad thai-the former had the appearance of a soaked sponge that had been left under a hot lamp for 3 days, and the latter contained seafood that looked like it had come out of a can and shipped from a remote overseas location although that description may be too complimentary. Needless to say I didn't eat it all although unfortunately the damage had already had been done.The food lead to serious consequences and resulted in me contracting food poisoning. I subsequently managed to injure my knee as a result of the violent sickness/delerium which may require surgery. Subsequently I was admitted to hospital where I was prescribed anti nausea medication/and had to be re-hydrated intravenously. Needless to say I didn't eat it all although unfortunately the damage had already had been done. I have since found numerous reviews which have questioned the legitimacy of this restaurant (if indeed it is a bona-fide restaurant), and hygiene practices which I would suggest are entirely credible. I would implore food hygiene to urgently review this restaurants food/preparation standards to prevent this happening to anyone else. My advice would be to avoid this place...