Publico is the restaurant inside the Centara Hotel. We were a party of four who came for a birthday celebration.
I have dined here before and am a member of the fitness center in the hotel. It costs 17,000 THB for a yearly membership, and members receive a 1500 THB coupon to use at Publico when they renew their membership. I was using my coupon this night.
We arrived promptly at 7 PM for our reservation. Only two other tables were occupied: The service was good in the beginning; we placed our orders and a couple of dishes arrived fairly quickly.
Unfortunately, my Caesar Salad did not look like the photo on the menu, but resembled something thrown together quickly without thought for presentation. Romaine lettuce, some croutons which weren't that fresh, and sliced chicken tucked to one side of the plate. And the plate looked too large for the amount of salad. It was kind of odd. The taste was acceptable--something easily duplicated at home. The dressing tasted like it came from a jar purchased at Topps Supermarket.
My daughter's Pasta Carbonara, was also just okay, something easily duplicated at home, using off-the-shelf ingredients.
Five Thai men were sitting at a nearby table drinking wine and waiting for their food to come. One of them kept repeating, loudly, "Why are we meeting here? I heard the food was not good." The man even said to a waitress, "I hear the food is not good here."
It turned out that the man was correct.
A Chinese shrimp and fruit salad arrived, which was a total disaster. It looked like some kind of surrealist painting. The tiny pieces of fruit were sweet and ripe, but they were drowning in some kind of 'salad creme' sauce that was dumped all over everything. The deep fried cold shrimps were limp and tasteless. A terrible dish. I have two Chinese ex-wives and used to work in China. I know bad Chinese food when I get it.
When an order of French Fires is the highlight of the meal, you know you have a problem.
My wife's chicken steak entree looked good, but then I saw how much difficulty she was having cutting the chicken breast. It was dried out and tough as shoe leather.
My daughter loves mashed potatoes, but after taking a taste from my wife's plate, she said they tasted like "instant" mashed potatoes. I can't personally confirm this, but my wife also said they didn't taste right. No one ate them.
And then, to totally spoil the meal, my 12-year-old son's 300 THB Angus burger and fries, never arrived. He was hungry, and so we were all feeding him food from our plates. The problem now was, we had no extra plate for him to use.
Some other diners had arrived, and the waitstaff was now totally ignoring us, even though we had not spoken to any of them since ordering. It took awhile, but we finally got him a plate, so myself, my daughter and wife could give him more of our food.
Finally, I had to loudly call "Sawadee-khap," across the room to get staff to come to our table so we could ask where my son's dinner was. The rest of us were almost finished.
As the staff whispered to each other, we could see that obviously, something was wrong. After another long wait a staff member approached our table. By now we had finished eating, except for my son who never got his meal. The lady informed us we would simply have to wait for my son's dinner. No explanation was given, no apology offered.
I told her to box his food to take home and bring the check. I knew we had spent more than the 1500 baht coupon. No problem with that.
After another long wait, I paid the bill, I did not complain or get upset or raise my voice. I have lived in Thailand a long time and know how to behave in a restaurant here.
Unfortunately, my birthday dinner was ruined by the incompetence of the staff and the low quality of the food. It's never a good thing, when you leave a restaurant hungry.
1. POOR SERVICE
2. INFERIOR FOOD
3. 7% SERVICE CHARGE
4. NO APOLOGY, NO EXPLANATION FOR THEIR MISTAKE
NOT RECOMMENDED
