Rosa's Thai Reading — Restaurant in Reading

They've definitely had a marketing team come in and/or are doing events for reviews.

I went for my birthday and honestly wish we hadn't, for £91 we could have gone to Buenesado for much better food and atmosphere. So the first complaint is that it's over priced.

The food wasn't great to be honest, the chicken satay was so bland with a watery peanut sauce that did it no favours.. When I crave satay I order from My Wok on deliveroo and their satay runs circles around Rosas. The fritters and the pork were good, but nothing to write home about. We ordered the green and red curry for main, which both were not good, bland and the beef was gelatinous, low quality, fatty and weird in texture. We even brought the food home, didn't give our opinions, my mum warmed some up (as it was my bday she was babysitting our 14mo), and even she said it wasn't very nice.. And stopped eating it. We were so underwhelmed that we got everything packed up, including the free Pad Thai which I tried in the evening and that actually was quite good.

Atmosphere was honestly a bit awkward, the place could have sacrificed some tables in favour of a place for staff to stand to look over people without hovering next to eating customers. It felt awkward sometimes, but counterpoint it did make getting service easy. It feels like there's a huge miscommunication between their pricing and the type of establishment it is, it's not very fancy as the prices suggest, think Nandos atmosphere, Buenasado pricing - definitely don't wear a dress to dinner here.

Its almost like people here forgot Bolan ever existed.. They had true authentic Thai food, ginormous portions, and honestly Rosa's doesn't hold a candle to them, their location really messed them up. But they had value, taste and atmosphere nailed, Rosa's was disappointing comparatively. It's a shame honestly that this is Readings new main Thai food venue. One thing that stuck out at the end is that the owner (I think) mentioned their portion sizes being big as we were packing our food to go, but honestly.. Bolan wins again...

We left with my partner apologising for my birthday meal and me offering to pay him back and us minimising the damage to ourselves by saying that at least we've tried it before we move to Southampton, but would I rather have eaten at Zyka, Bolan, Buenasado,...

MAKE SURE YOU CHECK YOUR BILL AND YOUR BANK ACCOUNT IF YOU'RE REFUNDED FOR WRONG BILLING!!

I love thai food and I was really excited for this new restaurant and was really looking forward to checking it out. My friend and I finally made it to Rosa's on 9 March 2025 for lunch. We ordered papaya salad, sharing platter for 2, roti, chicken chilli & basil, prawn pad see ewe, and two drinks.

Reason for 2 stars for food: Fried chicken on the sharing platter were too salty and disappointing - KFC hot wings are much more tasty. The Chicken Basil stir fry was also way too salty. My friend's pad see ewe tasted and looked different to the same dish she ordered only a week earlier. Papaya salad and the rest of the food on the sharing platter apart from the chicken were alright but not amazing.

Reason for 1 star for service: They delivered the wrong order. Instead of the Prawn pad see ewe, they delivered a chicken one. When the bill came, we paid without looking. It was only after we paid that I realised that they charged us for the wrong order (3 main course instead of 2). I immediately notified the server but it took ages for them to arrange a refund. When Ross (maybe the manager?) came to try to arrange the refund, he said they couldn't refund it to the original card because they don't take American Express. Strange because we paid the original bill just fine using American Express. We didn't want to argue so I provided a different card (visa debit) for the refund to be processed. The refund was apparently made. But today I checked my bank account and found that instead of refunding the £15.60 owed to me, they TAKE more. What the heck?!?! So I'm now owed £31.20 and if I'm not diligent enough with my monthly expense check, Rosa's would got away with ripping me off. I will need to return to the restaurant to sort this out. The experience at the time was bad enough and now I need to deal with this inconvenience.

Given the amount of money we spent lunching here and £10 service fee, this is unacceptable.

I'm a very unhappy customer and not planning to return once I get the £31.20 refunded.

Update: the restaurant tried to make up for the blunder when I came back to sort things out. I appreciate the gesture. The same friend and I came back many months later and had better experience so I’m...

Delicious food in a comfortable atmosphere.

I'm a big fan of Thai food especially the various curries, and I've been meaning to try Rosa's since it opened. I finally got the opportunity today and damn, was it worth it.

The cocktails are very nice as somewhere to get started. There's a bar right by the entrance and you can see them being made, and the consistency and taste was fantastic. I recommend the Dragon Star Martini if you have a sweet tooth.

The food was delivered very promptly early on Friday evening, which I think is very good considering how busy the popular eateries get. I started with Moo Ping: pork skewers with a tamarind sauce. Really tasty. My main meal was something I'm familiar with and a dish I use to benchmark any Thai restaurant: a beef massaman. The portion size was honestly a bit smaller than I expected, but holy moly the beef was perfectly cooked - literally melt in the mouth. The potatoes were just right as well, and the sauce was bang on. Delicious, and very filling, so my initial concern about portion size was swept away. To go with the curry I ordered stir fry broccoli and jasmine rice, both of which were great. Served hot and fresh, no complaints.

The service was excellent and the staff are friendly, and the restaurant itself has a pleasant atmosphere - no loud music for example. One issue I can see that didn't affect me is that a few tables seem to be located right in the serving lanes for the staff, so they get a lot more foot traffic going past them compared to other tables.

Other things to note: you can sit at the bar while you wait for your table; lots of air con present; disabled access is easy from the street; all utensils provided; prices for mains vary from about £12-£20.

In summary, Rosa's Thai is on my list of go-to places when I want something satisfying or a bit different. Heartily...