The Begging Bowl Reviews Summary

Food Quality

Pros:

• "One of my favourite Thai restaurants. Really good food."
• "Everything we ate was both original and delightful."
• "Every dish was tasty, presented well, and well worth the money we paid."
• "The whole cooked sea bass is great."
• "Their beef stir fry was amazing, one the most flavorsome and succulent beef dishes I've ever had."
• "The food was fresh and had the correct balance of sweet, salty and sour - as one would expect in Thai food."
• "The food here is authentic, light and fresh."

Cons:

• "Another hipster overvalued restaurant."
• "Too overpriced for such tiny portions. I expected much more flavour."
• "The beef sirloin was chewy and the prawns were undercooked."
• "But dishes have got smaller, menu not as good, and some dishes were inedible (boiled monkfish curry, I'm looking at you)."
• "The food we had was way too crispy and overly fried and not as flavoursome as expected."
• "Although dishes looked quite nice, they were quite overpriced for the portion size and food was not cooked thoroughly at all."
• "Some dishes just had too much lemon or chilli to be able to taste any other flavours."

Service

Pros:

• "Fantastic Thai food. Very nice setting and welcoming staff. Ps. Very reasonable prices too."
• "Every need we had was truly SURPASSED."
• "The staff were attentive, friendly but not in your face and easy to speak with."
• "Credit where credit is deserved. The staff were attentive and friendly."
• "The staff were very engaging and the venue itself is light and inviting."
• "Very friendly staff, all of whom were working hard to ensure diners were happy."
• "The waitress who served us could not have been more friendly."

Cons:

• "Service was appauling apart from tall lady with blonde bob and tall guy with frizzy hair."
• "The service is unfriendly and lazy."
• "Service really slow (bringing the dishes at different times instead of starters and mains is a pretty lazy way of doing it)."
• "Service: poor. We are very laid back and never mind about occasional mistakes etc. However there was no communication between servers."
• "Poor service, waiters tries to upsell and recommended you to order more dishes than needed."
• "Service dreadful and watch for being charged for gratuities in your final bill - not exactly legal or good practice."
• "The service is terrible, one of the waitresses was friendly but the rest didn't want to make eye contact."

Atmosphere

Pros:

• "The plants and atmosphere add so much but the food is a knockout on its own."
• "Beautiful plant-filled light and airy restaurant serving interesting food which is quite different to your usual westernised Thai fare."
• "The place is great, waiters are insanely friendly and everything about it is just beautiful and perfect."
• "The venue is very beautiful and welcoming and has a really great vibe."
• "So atmospheric and of course food is just amazing, great selections of cocktails."
• "This is a lovely Thai restaurant. Very cosy, good atmosphere."
• "Lovely interior design."

Cons:

• "A small restaurant where the narrow, small tables are tightly packed together - there's not enough room to swing a cat."
• "The interiors a tad dated and worn. The only downside is that we sat in the conservatory and the doors were open so we were bothered by flies."
• "The place was packed and really noisy so not a very good choice for a catch up with friends in any case."
• "The service and atmosphere were a little on the dull side."
• "The tables were quite small and seating a little uncomfortable."
• "Management not being able to handle their manner around staff due to the high pressures and demands that surround the world of food."
• "We ordered three dishes and two of them were a disappointment."

Value

Pros:

• "You are looking at £30-35 per person without even ordering drinks or dessert."
• "Great value and very friendly staff."
• "All at a very reasonable price (we ate well with beer for £25)."
• "I would highly recommend the Seabass and the condensed milk ice cream 😍🥰😍"
• "Being a frequent eater at Michelin starred restaurants... this is an original, inventive, thoughtful and genuinely great Thai restaurant with fantastic, good value and v tasty food."
• "Love the food! We had the cabbage, the cauliflower, salmon with pork belly and loads of rice and it was all delicious."
• "The food was absolutely incredible - so many unique dishes and flavours and the smells coming from the kitchen were wonderful."

Cons:

• "Overpriced food."
• "Very expensive for such small portions."
• "The food, however, is overpriced - small ‘sharing dishes’ for main course prices."
• "Gratuity is added automatically so check your bill - especially if you don't feel it is deserved."
• "The beef jungle curry dish was very good but it was a bit too fishy for me."
• "Price: for the quality of the food and service the dishes were massively overpriced."
• "Nice atmosphere and cleanliness; but the place is definitely too pricey for the tiny size of the dishes."

Menu Options

Pros:

• "Nice option that you can adjust a lot of the dishes to be vegan/vegetarian."
• "A very different Thai experience without the usual unimaginative offerings of most establishments."
• "You won't find Pad Thai or any of the usual westernised dishes but you will find great out-of-the-ordinary, wonderfully tasty dishes."
• "Whether this is authentic Thai or not I cannot say. But what I can say is, this is delicious."
• "Food exceeded our expectations, not the classic pad Thai and green curry you get everywhere. Some really nice regional Thai dishes with a very authentic, flavourful taste."
• "The dishes are tweaked to modern versions not what you would describe as super traditional staples but damn do they get the flavours and balance correct."
• "All dishes are dairy free so it was easy for me to order as the gluten free dishes were labelled and most of the menu was available to me."

Cons:

• "However, this restaurant doesn't take CASH!"
• "We were NOT told on arrival that it was card payment only."
• "Some of the younger waitresses have attitude problems and accommodating toddlers seems to be an ongoing issue."
• "The tiny sea bass would have cost £3 max from a supermarket but was £14.50."
• "Having made the waiter and then the manager aware of the situation, and kindly asked if anything could be sent out for our guest that she could eat, we were at first ignored."
• "When we asked, we got a very unprofessional answer: 'that’s how this restaurant operates, food is supposed to be shared'..and she walked away."
• "Confidence? plenty. Good Thai food? absent."