Thai Rack Glass House — Restaurant in North Hertfordshire

If you are looking for authentic Thai food or something close, don’t go to the Thai Rack. The food is disappointing, as is the service. Simply too busy to pay attention.

Everything is over sauced and heavily laden with sugar and salt. We were told that rather than serve authentic cuisine, they cook for the local palette. That’s understood. They are catering to the market. But to be told that we, as customers, should request authentic Thai food is problematic. Surely the onus is on the restaurant to offer both as does another Thai venue in Royston?

This restaurant has clearly found its niche that is to trot out British style Thai dishes for locals. So if that’s not for you, please don’t bother and if you’ve travelled in Asia then stay well away.

The sweet and sour chicken was drowning in sauce: more a soup than a stir fry. The chicken was thickly cut; a basic mistake on a good stir fry.

When I poured the stir fry liquid onto an empty plate to show how much sauce they had served, then asked if they would eat all that liquid, the response was ‘no’. So why would they expect a customer to stomach this? The dish tasted more Chinese than Thai. Just chicken drowning in too sweet and too salty a sauce. Also the colour was a high red. Perhaps artificial? The vegetables were limp due to too much fluid.

The rice was plentiful and moist but lacked any flavour. The crab tasted musty.

The pork belly was over cooked, as if reheated. No crisp on the belly fat, where any fat could be found. The fat had more of a stretchy consistency than a crispy one. The pork itself was hard, and dry. Clearly overcooked. Perhaps reheated in a microwave? The colour was off too.

The papaya salad rather than fresh and fragrant was also over sauced and limp. The same sauce as used on the soft shell crab starter, but diluted down. Again, super sweet. No bite to the vegetables.

No standard citrus, lemon grass or chilli notes, more glutinous sugary and salty soupy sauces. Apparently, made this way for us locals.

Customer service was embarrassingly poor. No one asked how our food was once we started to eat. Admittedly, the venue became more busy. But there was no interest there aside from banging out the order and leaving you to it.

We asked 12 times for the bill, which they didn’t want to provide. However, the conversation about the whole experience was very much one of excuses, and had a sickly, patronising whiff of ‘you’re trying to run a number on us’. We paid in full, of course. We wanted to pay. We insisted.

Having asked over and over for the bill, it was left for us to walk up to the bar and insist to pay again and again. At the bar, we were greeted with more excuses and contradictions as to why the food was so disappointing.

It’s not about making payment or not, it’s about the restaurant taking on feedback and treating the customer with respect. It was very much about them; their excuses and ‘guilt’ (as they said) about the food, rather than about truly listening for improvement or to grow the customer base. Please provide a positive, respectable dining experience than tell me you feel guilt.

If you love authentic Thai food, you’ll likely know where to go in Cambridge. This experience is for people who like heaps of food on the plate that heavily tastes of sugar and salt. No notes. No flavour. No fragrance. It was essentially a high class ready meal. We ate well less than half of the dishes. Just gave up.

This is the third time eating with the Thai Rack in three years as each experience to date has been a farce. We’ve always paid in full and tried to give it a go because we want to support our local venues. But no more to the Thai Rack, and refusing to pay is simply to let them off the hook as they can convince themselves it’s a con rather than genuine customer feedback. They don’t care. That was the sentiment and clear by the response and behaviour.

Then again, they have a niche but it’s not for diners who seek authenticity, or at least balanced flavourful cooking.

No star...

Finally made it for date night to The Thai Rack Glass House! Finding parking immediately outside the front of the restaurant, and the warm welcome from the staff was the perfect start to a delightful evening.

Choosing dishes was the hardest part – everything on the menu sounded like a taste bud vacation! We eventually took the leap with some tasty starters (calamari, and pork & prawn dumplings). For mains, we dove into the Gang Ped Yang – a duck coconut curry that was pure creamy indulgence – and the Gang Pa, not for the faint-hearted, a hot jungle curry with pork that provided a delightful kick. Steamed rice and vibrant stir-fried vegetables rounded out the feast perfectly. Husband decided to round it off with a deep-fried ice-cream ball. The food was fresh, fragrant and delicious.

We adore Thai food for its flavour explosion, but also for the way it feels lighter and healthier than some other cuisines. And, every bite brought back happy memories of our twenties spent exploring Thailand.

Prices added up quickly though, expect to pay between £60-80 (for 2) with drinks and a tip on top.

Now we’ve finally made it, we won’t leave it so...

Edited Review as restaurant seems to have changed hands. Either that or they have a new chef? Thai Green Curry (34) was watery and totally nothing like what i had before. After ordering for the first time since my last review 5 months ago, I was very disappointed with my meal and the portion was a lot smaller than before with hardly any chicken which did not fill the gap as it once did. Sad to say I won't be back again. Long way to drive for such small portions. It would be great to know where the previous owners or chef have gone.

Absolutely delicious food! We ordered 93, 34 with Chicken, 888 with Beef and a side of satay chicken and oh my goodness! My kids are usually fussy eaters and they BOTH swallowed their portions!

The telephone guy today (Tues 6th July 2021,) was amazing and helped me achieve my order with no fuss at all, he had outstanding customer service, made great recommendation for the satay chicken which left me excited to try my order! All of the food was just delicious and everything was full of flavour!!

Highly recommended!! I will certainly be ordering again...