Kai's Oriental Restaurant & Bar — Restaurant in Slough

This restaurant is a recent local favourite of mine, and we tend to bring a lot of business their way, as we always recommend our large social and family gatherings that we attend Kai's.

The food in the restaurant is always of a high quality and is definitely one of the best Chinese restaurants I have been to. So for the restaurant side, they get a keen 5 star rating.

... Then there's the takeaway side of the business...

We ordered a regular family size takeaway, tapas style, a mixture of dishes to pick and choose from; sharing the way families should.

The person over the phone was hard to understand, but that's hardly an irregular occurrence within customer servicing. What was irregular was that we had spent 20 minutes fighting over the menu, jotting everything down as the number value of the order (i.e Sweet & Sour Chicken = 1, or whatever), only to be told by the staff member that they need the name of the dish. Which warrants the question, why have a numerical value at all? Seems like such a simple idea, but oh well, it only meant a bit more fuss as we scoured our way through the menu trying to match the numbers with the dish; to wish the person seemed to struggle to understand what we were saying (might be a good idea to implement a numbering system to combat this problem... Oh wait...).

Order complete, we were told a 20 minute wait. Luckily I had a lot of work to do, so tried to cram it all in before the collections. This resulted in us arriving 15 minutes later than advised, but that's my fault as it's hard to tear me away from my duties.

We were told to take a seat, and they were just trying to find out order.

Now, I'm not sure whether they lost our order, or it really took this long to cook, but we were sat waiting for a further 40 minutes. It was only at the time that one of us decided to go and ask for a third time, the staff member finally bothered to rush off and check, then returning with the food.

Little bit confused why a 20 minute wait for food, then turned into a 75 minute wait, but there we go.

Too hungry to argue, we took the food home and eagerly dug in.

2 minutes into our meal an we found our first short curly black hair... Still extremely hungry, we removed the hair and tried not to think about it or the region it seemingly came from.

Only a few minutes later, a long brown/ dark-blonde hair this time.

It was too late now, we were already making our way through the dishes, but needless to say our appetite began to lessen.

We soldiered through, and finally noticed the final black curly hair in yet another dish as we were cleaning up (image attached)... We threw the rest away. Burned it. Dared not fathom the quantity of genital hair that we may have consumed.

All in all, the take-away side of the restaurant was astoundingly poor. The overly moist food leads me to believe the dishes were waiting on their side for at least 20 minutes whilst we were sitting there. The flavour has apparently not been added, and instead was substituted with their chefs latest garnish; pubic hairs.

Chef, please shave.

0/5 stars from the take-away side of...

We had the pleasure of eating here a month or so ago.

We came on a recommendation and had what was not only an incredible meal but a really memorable evening. :-)

For those who enjoy good nutritious food, I’d say Kai’s is quite a rare & special gem of a place in Slough.

Being a great lover of wholesome food (including cooking it myself, growing vegetables/herbs, not just the eating part!), I’d say what we ate was a lot closer to authentic Chinese food. In any case, it was slightly unique and refreshingly different to what is found in many otherwise great oriental restaurants.

It was lovely and impressive to see how Sandy engages with customers, whilst being able to run the place at the same time. This gave it quite a homely and warm touch.

Looking at the variety of reviews left here, the most apparent thing to me is how hard it is to please everyone whilst running what can be a busy service. Not everyone’s experience will or can be the same.

Anyway, thank you again for such a special evening and looking forward to being back w family in the future!...

I have not been to Kais for many years. The interior design has changed, its more modern, open and they gave added a bar area next to the restaurant section. They offer a selection of beers and cocktails including beers from Japan, China, Thailand and Spain. Our party was of 8 with slightly different preferences including a vegan. The menu consisted of Chinese and Thai dishes with the starters and aromatic duck and crispy lamb being tasty. The main courses were generally good although the veggie options were very limited. I was disappointed to be charged for Chiili oil, and a takeaway box even though the bill came to just under £250 in total, as have never been charged for chilli oil or dipping sauces before. That has left a sour taste from an overall decent meal and something that could so easily have been avoided by the restaurant. For me the little things and details are just as important as the big ones and it has left me questioning whether I would...