Thai Jaa Restaurant — Restaurant in St Helens

Several years ago, my partner and I were delighted to discover Thai Jaa. Since then we have visited several times to enjoy a good meal either for a celebration or just 'because'. As we don't live in St Helens our visits have been irregular and often involved a special visit. When we decided to visit last Saturday we had not been for about a year and waited for them to open their doors a half hour later than their advertised opening time. We ordered starters . . . . honey roast ribs and chicken satay, both of which we had eaten there before and greatly enjoyed. Our first observation was how much smaller the portions were (even tho' the prices had increased considerably). There were 3 ribs, 2 about 7cms long with regular slivers of gristle and one a little longer with an actual bone running through it. Gone was the delicious honey glaze and tasteful slightly overdone edges. Instead they lay wet and grey in an watery substance. The chicken was not much better and, like the ribs, were devoid of any relationship to what I understand to be food. Both had the consistency of some kind of reconstituted unidentifiable matter that had been stamped to shape in a form. The chicken shaped objects had been coated in a yellow dust posing as a spice mixture. The blandness of both starters was added to by that unmistakeable taste of the packaging that these reconstituted stamped out excuses for food had been frozen in. We told the waitress of our disappointment and she insisted that neither menu nor cook had changed since our last visit. This was a blatant lie and was intended to make it our 'fault' rather than admitting that their standards had slipped. Unfortunately we didn't cancel our mains and leave at this point. My partner chose the seafood salad which, when it arrived, looked like just a bowl of roughly cut lettuce with a vague smell of shrimp about it. Upon exploration she discovered 2 mussels, 2 small scallops, a couple of prawn and a few slices of squid. Her disappointment dissolved into anger at being totally ripped off. I had roast duck in a red curry sauce. Costing over £12, not including rice, I thought I may get something more substantial than the salad. How naïve!!! A bowl containing a soupy substance with about a half dozen small pieces of duck, 2 small tomatoes, a few chunks of pineapple and 6 grapes (!!??) a couple of which hadn't even had their stalks removed, was placed in front of me. Both my partner and I were furious at the gall of their charging top prices for minimal quantity of lousy quality badly 'cooked' food. Her anger was stoked even more by the waitress's lies and attempts of justification and boiled over into expletives in her description of what we had been presented with as food. Not the best move as the waitress used this as an opportunity to suggest such profanity had been directed at her and flipped her position to that of 'victim'. Do not be fooled by the smiling face and little girl voice of this woman, that is not who she is! The bill came to over £35 (which included 2 small draught beers) and I, again, voiced my opinion on a breakdown of their pricing against the quality and service provided. The waitress retorted that it's a restaurant so what did I expect. I do not regard this as a restaurant any longer, greed has taken over and converted it from a place that I once recommended to all my friends into a den of robbers who do not deserve to be in the business of...

Updated!!

In response to the owners reply.

I am not and have never been a liar! I have no reason at all to post untrue reviews for any business. The pictures I took did not have a flash on. It was 9pm at night so obviously I had a light on but no flash!

It seems they have a very negative response to every single person who has given them a poor review. Accusing people of being defamatory towards their business.

Honestly, they would look better as a business if they admitted the food they delivered to me was abysmal and apologised. I don't want anything from them I was simply making people aware that this is what we received and to avoid it. I did also say that the Thai Red curry and rice was nice but unfortunately that was the only part of the order that we ate.

As for it not being tolerated, what's she guna do? Sue me for saying her food is terrible and posting factual information?

This is the whole reason I didn't call them, as I didn't want an argument but I will be ringing when I am free.

I left this review on just eat but only the star rating was made public. I never ever leave reviews anywhere but the food we received was absolutely disgusting! No exaggeration. The photos speak for themselves. Was also told today by an ex member of staff that they make everything in batches, and then microwave it. I really don't know how people leave 5 star reviews...

We used to order from here every week, the food is great and I'd been looking forward to booking for my companies next meal. We've had issues recently though.

Occasional errors on orders have turned in to more frequent errors. Usually we don't mention simple mix ups but after a mistake two weeks in a row (and special dietary requirements meaning the meal was incredible) we fed it back. We was told a credit note would be applied next time.

The following week we ordered, the order was incorrect again, three times in a row, the credit note was not applied.

Regardless of how good a product is, if you don't look after customers you lose them, usually this many errors would be enough for me to draw a line but the food is so good we gave them another chance when passing by tonight.

We hadn't booked but the restaurant had one customer in as we passed so we dropped in. We were turned away as they were 'pretty busy tonight', not even an offer of ordering takeout was made so here is my updated review in contrast to my below (previously gleaming) review

Original review It's brilliant. The staff are delightful. The portions are generous. The food, I wish I had ten bellies so I could eat it ten times over. Great vegan options. Great timing. Absolutely faultless and I wish this business all the best for now and the future. Reviewed my review, same...