The House — Restaurant in Norwich

I came for my birthday, and from the experience I received.... I think it would be "it could have been better". As a student, I wanted to treat myself on my birthday, and I have never tried authentic Thai food before. There was also the fact that the reviews were good so I gave this place a try.

I ordered a House Platter, in which some of the appetisers were bland compared to others, the ones that weren't were alright, the satay sauce that came with tasted like nothing. I didn't notice that the platter was a minimum of 2, in which a server unkindly never mentioned to me at all even though I was dining by myself, it was partially my fault, but it would have been nice to be alerted even if I was aware. A Pork Pad Thai, which, smelled very nice, but tasted bland and was very oily, and a Lychee Mock-tail, which was the only thing I enjoyed.

The service was very mixed, I got a waitress who didn't really smile (maybe they had a bad day..?) and another one who was much more pleasant to talk with but still could have been better. The restaurant atmosphere was lovely, and the place smelled very nice.

My accommodation also provided a 20% Student discount. The slip never mentioned that it was a cash only offer, only that T/C applies in tiny, tiny print, so I found out the hard way of actually dining here. If I knew I would've made sure to bring my purse! I don't really get the deal with this though, other places I've been to didn't have a condition like this when there is a student offer, but I guess this place is an exception. And so, I racked up a £33.80 bill just for the seemingly 3 items I ordered, very expensive, I also regret dining here on my birthday.

All in all, I'm never...

I was looking forward to eating at the restaurant for my birthday as I had heard good things about the food. Unfortunately the service was the poorest I have experienced in Norwich in the last 6 years even though there were 4 waitresses between 5 or 6 tables that evening the service was really slow and we felt ignored any many points of the evening.

Two people at the table ordered the same dish and one came out looking as you would expect the second came out 2 minutes later with the sauce consisting of 60% oil and completely separated. After requesting if they could fix this, the first time the dish came back out looking identical and the second time with nearly no sauce. Eventually my friend told them he was not going to eat the food. To which the waitresses blinked and continued with their job.

My seafood curry came out looking good but they did not provide the egg friend rice i had ordered with it, after asking 3 different waitresses if my rice was on the way and getting no clear response my main was finally cold. I sent it back to which I assume it was reheated and it eventually arrived with the rice and the rest of the table watched me eat my now tough seafood dish.

The starters were good and the place does look nice, but I will not be going back and we were offered very little in the way of an apology. There was no clear person in charge to which to communicate our annoyance. The food that people did enjoy was over priced for the quality and there was to much salt in...

I was really disappointed to say the least. Initially walking in the lady that served us during the night was not welcoming and did not provide us with good service at all. She just seemed disinterested and seemed like she didn't have time for us. In terms of the food, I was very disappointed. Thai cuisine is one of my favourites, I've been to many good spots and had the pleasure of enjoying it while I was in Thailand as well. So, I know what good Thai food is meant to be like. For starters we ordered the crispy calamari, golden parcels, and prawn spring roll. The calamari was undercooked, soggy and nothing was crispy about it. The prawns in the spring roll weren't cleaned properly. The golden parcels were just meh. For mains we had crispy chilli beef with coconut milk rice and pad thai with jumbo prawns. The crispy beef was okay but too sweet for my liking, would've liked it more chilli not just drenched in sweet chilli sauce. The coconut milk rice was nice. The pad thai did not taste like pad thai, it was just sour. Not sweet sour and salty like it should be. £18/19 for a very small portion and two pieces of prawns?? That's a joke. The banana fritters dessert was the highlight, which ended the night on a high but at that point it didn't take much to do that. Overall, very disappointed and I don't understand how they have an rating above 4 to be...