Thai Rack — Restaurant in St Albans

It's OK. I'm no Thai food officionado but I felt this was a very pre-prepared meal, low-quality compared to other Thai restaurants I've been to. However, this is just my personal opinion and it may have been a one-off as the reviews in general have been good, indeed we were recommended here by one of my wife's work colleagues - so she obviously enjoyed it.

I had fish cakes to start which were soggy, floppy and greasy and for what they were, way over-priced. They should have been crispy which leads me to suspect that mine had been pre-cooked once already and then microwaved to reheat (we all know how once-crispy food goes when you microwave it, or try to reheat it generally. I tried some of the wife's satay, which were skewered tepid slices of chicken (I thought Thai satay was cubes?) that had no real cooking colour, but was just yellowy from the marinade, but the satay sauce was tasty. The garnish looked at me with that "put me out of my misery" look - you know what carrot looks like when it's been sitting around for a while. Imagine the look on your face when you're waiting for a bus in the wet and cold of January and then make it carroty! To be blunt, the starters were a disaster.

Our main courses were red and yellow curry and rice. This was nice although very runny (could have done with having more body, thickening, if you know what I mean) but it tasted good. Just the right amount of spice.

We were here for dinner, but it was early and it had a few tables full so it had an atmosphere (one drunk woman was particularly loud and amusing) and the staff were very friendly and attentive. The decor is, well, making an effort but as others noticed, is tired. Tables reminded me of school, but the garden is a bonus.

I understand this isn't a glowing review and I'd always urge you to try it yourself as I may 1) be being too picky; 2} had an early dinner service that was unusually sub par, using up old lunch service food? (hopefully not, but those fish cakes were unforgivable and I mean unforgivable) and like I say other reviewers like it (although I notice some comments about pre-made starters). Come on chaps, cook them fresh!

Main courses OK, garden a bonus, location nice. With a little effort this could be much,...

DO NOT RECOMMEND.

Went for dinner yesterday evening and was told there was a table available for us. Within 5 minutes of sitting down at least 4 waitresses had been over to ask us to order drinks and our food. We felt pressured to quickly order something so said we would order or starter whilst still looking at the menu for what we wanted for our mains. Someone then came over and said if you’re not ordering mains now give us back the menus. Our starters arrived within minutes and then a very rude lady came out (much older than the other waitresses who were at least polite) and told us off for not ordering starters and mains at the same time- we felt like school children being scolded. We explained that the waitress didn’t say it was a problem to order starters first and then the main- she was very rude and miserable and ruined the evening for us- telling us off in-front of a full restaurant of people. We were then pressured to order mains ASAP- all the owners of this restaurant care about is getting as many people through the door as physically possible- people spend good money to go out for a nice, relaxing evening meal. They don’t want to feel on edge and rushed out. We quickly ordered mains- I was expecting my noodles to be savoury as the sauce was soy sauce but they just tasted very overly sweet which I am not a fan of. Pad Thai was ok. Will not be returning as I’ve never been spoken to so rudely by somebody in a restaurant! It’s a shame the older lady who had a go at us works there as the other waitresses were polite- she is single handedly ruining business for this restaurant. And then they have the utter cheek to charge 10% service!! What a joke that is after receiving...

As a local resident of St. Albans I have been a here a few times with friends and I have always been apprehensive about coming here. I visited this restaurant just before the second lockdown. Upon arrival, they didn't have my reservation (even though they had telephoned in the afternoon to confirm my booking AND made it an issue that they couldn't find the booking as we were the only customers inside!

The worst part of the experience was that we sat down at 18:09. By 18:43 we had finished our meals: - drinks, starters and mains. We were seated right next to the bar upstairs (literally attached to the bar). There was a lovely lady looking after the bar, however she just stood behind the bar staring at us (literally two yards away from us). To add insult to injury, she literally had her phone up in front of her on Facebook! I can appreciate that we were the only customers at the time, however this behaviour was inexcusable.

Never in my life have I gone out to dinner and finished within 30 minutes. and we were deliberately rushed. I do not believe it is due to the fact we were the only customers inside as by 18.15 lots of other customers arrived, so there was no excuse for the rushed food.

Overall, I do not think I would return back to Thai Rack anytime soon. They need to improve on their customer service and delivering an overall...