Chilli Padi — Restaurant in Newcastle upon Tyne

We arrived at 18:00 on a Thursday without a reservation and the pair of us were seated without issue as the place wasn't that busy. The decor and ambience is functional and no-frills and it has an atmosphere akin to that of a side-street food vendor, which it kinda is!

Myself and my date both ordered noodle dishes and the food arrived promptly. While not big on presentation, the food was tasty and wholesome and a step up from your usual takeaway fare. I had a seafood noodle dish and although it was slightly too salty, it was tasty, with a nice hint of spice and included a decent amount of prawns and squid. My date ordered a vegan tofu dish and requested it to be made spicy, which they duly obliged with. While the dish was very spicy, you could still taste the ingredients (according to my date - it was too spicy for me!). However, on the downside, her dish did have a large amount of chopped onion included in it, which was a little disappointing and a typical 'padding out' tactic which retaurants use to maximise their profits.

However, one big thing which did let down the dining experience was the attitude of the staff. While the service itself was prompt, we felt under a lot of pressure to order quickly, eat quickly and vacate quickly. While deciding what to order, we were asked no less than four times within a space of 10 mins if we would like to order, despite telling the waiter the first time to give us 10 mins to make our minds up. I finished eating my meal first, so one of the waitresses came up to our table and asked my date if she would like the remainder of her main boxing up to take away, when she was very clearly still enjoying it!

While I understand that we didn't pre-book and the place was filling up, we were still paying customers and should have been treated as such. Wherever we would have been treated differently if we had pre-booked, I cannot say. It is also worth noting that they only accept cash payments, which is very odd in this day and age.

In summary, decent food at a reasonable price, but let down by service which has it's priorities a little bit wrong. Go if you fancy a quick bite and an authentic side-street dining experience, but don't expect any frills. I would go back again, but will probably be a bit more firm with the waitering staff next time around...

Lovely food but let down by service on this occasion. We were 4 people dining on a Friday night. 3 meals came out and they had forgotten about the fourth meal. We had to reorder and had a long wait. Restaurant and online orders were no busier than other places on a Friday night.

Also one person in the party had an allergy and we made it clear which meal was affected. The allergy ingredient was removed from another person's meal too.

So let down a fair bit on this occasion. Service charge had been added on to our bill and we explained that we were not happy with our experience on this occasion so we wouldn't be paying this. To the contrary we would have expected a gesture of good will as it had been a stressful experience.

They said that in December they add compulsory service charge to everyone's menu and so they in fact had given us a gesture of good will. We challenged this saying compulsory service charges are illegal unless stated first (menu says for parties of 8 or over). They backtracked on this later so this may have been a genuine mistake.

Anyway explaining we weren't happy with our service was a stressful experience too.

Some of the prices now are expensive so service should really be better. A small portion of rice is now almost £5. Interiors are drafty too so all our legs were cold.

Staff are lovely actually. Food is tasty. Plenty of staff. But we had two significant mistakes in our order. Think there needs to be training making sure orders are correctly delivered between the waiting staff (a young woman in our case) and the kitchen.

The young man behind the bar is very professional and a credit to the restaurant. The female manager behind the till didn't handle our situation very well and we left out meal feeling stressed and annoyed -...

Probably my fave Asian restaurant in Newcastle. Unbelievably good food. Everything is delicious, and well balanced. It's cash-only, and byob too, so don't forget to hit the atm and off-license before your feast.

EDIT: March 2019. Had another spectacular meal here tonight. We tried the Clay-pot Beef with Ginger Spring Onion Sauce, which was an instant new fave. The beef was super tender, and it's just a cozy, well-balanced dish all around. We also ordered an old fave, the always-awesome Ching Qing Spicy Chicken (which I've elsewhere seen called Chongqing Spicy Chicken, or Mala Chicken, or La Zi Ji, or Sichuan Spicy Chicken, or hide-and-seek chicken). We love the spicy, crispy-crunchy, numbing aspects of the dish, but please be careful with it - I recommend you always get it with another dish, so you don't get burned out on the heat and numbing effect of the Sichuan peppercorns and the chillis! It's delicious, but it's very potent, and for maximum enjoyment, you should be able to give your palate a li'l break in between bites of it. The clay-pot beef went perfectly with it, imho. We also ordered the Salted Crispy Chicken Bites, which were perfectly crispy and satisfying too. We should've only ordered one rice between the two of us, because we had a full bowl left over to take home.

As a side note, this was the fastest meal they've ever cooked for me - we ordered the food, and then my friend immediately popped out to the off-license just next door, and the food arrived about 2 minutes later, before he'd even gotten back! It took all my strength to wait till he returned before attacking the deliciousness waiting in front of me :P

The place isn't heap, but I think it's worth every damn penny. Seriously, it's probably still the best Asian restaurant in...