The Expat — Restaurant in New York

The restaurant is a gastro pub and is in the basement and as you enter the bar is right in front of you, so its a drunkard's delight. The restaurant is pretty small, however, there is outside dining. Outside dining needs to up their game, it's pretty sloppy and some tables had bad lighting and right underneath the public CC cameras.

Food: ⭐⭐½ Positives - The lemon curry pepper wings were good. It had a crunch to it and had a good zingy taste to it. The curry chicken quesadillas were very good. Earl grey hot tea was outstanding. Negatives - The Singapore noodles although came with a large serve, felt was lacking seasoning. The Tom yum chicken fried rice although smelled good, the taste didn't match the aroma, infact the food tasted stale and mushy. The Bo Luc Lac was delicious, but disappointing when it came to quantity. There were more cucumbers than beef cubes and it was cooked to well done 😐. The spring rolls were soggy and oily when served. Coconut rice didn't have the authentic robust coconut flavor.

Service: ⭐⭐ The waitress who took our call, received us at our arrival, and who seated us was welcoming & cordial. However, the waitress who took our order was on the flip side. Initially was good, but turned out to make our evening a disaster. We placed our order and 20 mins later my wife had her order (fried rice). Unlike most restaurants, they didn't serve the appetizers first and my wife waited for the rest of the food to arrive so we all could eat together however minutes passed and nothing arrived. I had to call the waiter and sendthe fried rice back as it became cold. She looked pissed turned around and said in this restaurant we serve whatever is ready first and everything else comes after. In my head and the rest were thinking "so what's the concept of having appetizers (cravables) if you don't get it before the entreés". Anyways we let it go by and waited more. 10 mins later she comes in and in a mocking tone explained: "since you wanted everything together, they are remaking your food". We all had facepalms😐. 10 mins later the server came and explained it to us for no reason and this time said next time you have to tell us if you want appetizers first. But isn't this common sense to serve them first???!!!!. Anyways we got the food and it wasn't up to par.

Ambience: ⭐⭐⭐ The restaurant looked very dull as the first impression led to it being in a basement. Lighting was low, tables and chairs didn't match, some seats were right underneath the NYPD cameras, and tons of marijuana smoke from the streets. I would let others know to dine in and have less than 5 people as the tables don't fit larger groups.

Overall: ⭐⭐⅓

Suggestions: Use basmati rice or sona masoori rice, might help with the mushiness of the rice. Explain the customers the order in which they might receive their food. Waitresses need retraining in people skills. Please make rounds to ensure people have full...

2/5: A gastropub with questionable gastronomy and weird (negative) quirks

I’m reviewing this place as a restaurant, not a pub, as I didn’t have a drink.

Came here with my date on a Sunday night to have some plates for dinner.

We ordered the Thai Yellow Curry Nachos, Thai Basil Stir Fry, and then the Chocolate Brownie.

The Nachos were certainly… interesting. First off, the yellow curry flavor was not noticeable at all, so I'm not really sure why they’re called “yellow curry” nachos. They tasted like pretty standard restaurant nachos, with chips + cheese sauce + shredded chicken. It wasn’t really bad, but it was overwhelming. There is a ton of cheese sauce on top, to the point where it was a bit off-putting. We enjoyed it for a few minutes but stopped as we knew we’d get sick.

The Thai Basil Stir Fry was mediocre. Standard white rice. A few pieces of chicken. Weird-tasting pickled carrots. Lots of ginger. A side serving of nuts. It’s okay if you’re super hungry and need to eat anything, but not okay if you’re looking for a good quality entree for $15.

The brownie was, again, okay. Standard brownie, although it tasted a bit off, to be honest. Waaaaay too much whipped cream on top. Tasty scoop of vanilla on the side. But there were also blueberries alongside the brownie, which is something I’ve never seen before. Strange.

For all these dishes, we left them unfinished as we couldn’t be bothered to eat anymore after a certain point.

The service was questionable. The servers were nice, but the weird thing is they kept coming to our table about every 5 minutes or so, asking us if we were done eating. If we put our utensils down for a second to take a break from eating, they’d teleport to us asking if they could take our plates or not. It felt like we were certainly being rushed - strange given that it wasn’t fully packed or anything. Not great.

Do note that it can get pretty loud inside - it is a pub, after all. If you’re looking for a quiet evening, it isn’t here.

Overall, this place might be good as a pub, but as a restaurant, it leaves a lot...

This restaurant was recommend by several of my friends, I was hesitant to try it at first, but decide to give it a go.

As I entered, the host didn't greet me at all, I decided to sit at the bar since it was just me.

The female bartender was overwhelmed and scolded me when I asked for a menu, I assured her its not a problem since they were busy.

When my food arrived I had to wait for utensils for few minutes, only to be given plastic fork because they ran out of their regular ones. Fine.

There was a large party that sat next to me that was extremely loud and pushed me away from my space, while going back and forth for food multiple times. I tried to reason with them by asking them to be more courteous of their surroundings, to my surprise they were apologetic but also didn't change their behavior.

The Thai fried rice that I ordered wasn't good, there was no flavor, and the chicken was undercooked. Fine, took it to go.

As I tried to finish my drink, a staff member almost took it away, this is when I decided to get up and pay my tab and leave.

The female bartender that didn't even serve me yelled at me in front of whole bar that next time I should tip.

Girlie, you tip for service, not for attitude issues. Just because you can't handle stress and work you shouldn't take it out on other people. Also public shaming can lead to a lawsuit, look it up.

If you are LGBT person or a POC avoid this please, they clearly don't want you there, nor your business.

Hope that the rude female bartender find a job that suits her attitude and zero...