Mango Cafe - Lunch Review

Mango Cafe Entrance

I am a big fan of thai food, and to see one at reasonable prices is a big plus. The pictures on their webpage look very inviting and the prices won't burn a hole in your wallet. I decided to drop by Asia City on a friday afternoon for a late lunch. Surprisingly the cafe was quite crowded (the airconditioned room anyway). First impression before going in was pleasant. Things changed once we sat down, the noise from all the patrons bounced and echoed over the walls causing it to sound like a a busy street market amplified. Not too disturbed by that, we continued to order, seeing it was pretty packed, the food must be pretty good.

We looked and the menu and ordered the following

• Green Mango Salad
• Phad Thai (My all time favourite thai dish)
• Pineapple Fried Rice
• Fluffy Fish with Mango Sauce
• Spicy Fried Long Beans
• 1 chinese tea and water

Now the story starts.. seeing that it was crowded, we expected that the food would be slightly delayed to come out.. *hint* *hint*

Let's start the clock, 1.15pm we placed our order.
1.30pm the drinks finally arrived, mind you the cup was full of fingerprints of oil
1.50pm phad thai arrives, cold and without any utensils. Requested the staff from some small plates n utensils.
1.55pm patience wears out and decide to go and collect the plates n utensils myself, and well, they ran out of forks and the "clean" plates had rice on it.
2.10pm pineapple rice and fluffy fish arrives, by this time pretty much all the tables were done with their meals.
2.15pm the mango salad arrives. funny thing is.. the mango salad is a starter, so shall we add a new section to the menu called finisher?


Ok enough ranting bout the service. So, how's the taste? after all, sometimes you have to wait for good food. Well let's see..
The phad thai was reasonably nice to eat if it was served hot. I remember that I when I ate this elsewhere, i was served on the side some chili flakes and sugar. This is the first time i'm eating phad thai in kk, so please tell me where I can find a better one.

Cold Phad Thai

The pineapple rice was soggy and extremely buttery with a small hint of pineapple, I think they should have called it butter rice instead.

Buttery Pineapple Fried Rice

Fluffy fish was not worth the money at all, it is just fried shredded "fish" with more than its weight in flour. There is almost no fish taste in there, it is definately not worth the RM12 charged.

Fluffy flour.. i mean fish

We finished off with our starter, the long awaited green mango salad finally came, the taste is what you expect from thai food, an infusion of sweet and sour really get's your tastebuds working. i would consider this a consolation prize to a disappointing day.

Yummy mango salad

So what's the verdict? Would I go back? Yes i would. Why? I believe that they were just having a bad day, shortage of staff (so the staff tells me) resulted in poor service and hopefully the poor quality of food served. Although they were understaffed, they were polite and apologised for the delay with a smile while running around serving the tables. I will visit them a second time and hopefully I would have a different opinion by then. As for now, of all the dishes I tried, I would only order the phad thai or the mango salad again, and pray that the phad thai will be served hot this time. Oh wait, i forgot one thing, their desserts simply look so delicious, I didn't have time to try because I was running late for a meeting, but will have to give it a go next time round.