This is a well appointed very nice liittle Thai Restaurant in the mian street of Penrith. OPen for Lunch Mon-Sat 11am-2.30pm and Dinner Sun-Thursday 5.00-9.0pm and Fri-Sat 5.00 - 10.00pm. A fairly good menu choice and also very reasonably priced.
My husband and I decided to eat there on a Friday night - we had no problem securing a table for 2 at around 7pm. We are both lovers of Thai Food - my husbnad has eaten Thai cuisine for over 30yrs and myself for over 15yrs. We have eaten in some very exuisite and expensive as well as the least expensive Thai take away shops and everything in betwwen. Great flavours, presentation and quality are found across the board.
We were very disaapointed with our visit to Aroy-D enough to say that we will not be back. AS I said the ambience was great, the waitress polite, allowng us time to peruse the menu before taking our order etc. But when our dishes arrived - except the fact that mine was chiclen and husband's was beef - they looked almost identical!. Worst though was they tasted almost identical too! This is not good when I had ordered a dish containing chicken CHILLI, capsicum, grean bean, bamboo and shallots, and husband's supposedly contained PEANUTS beef, zuchini, onion, capsicum, broccoli, and carrot.
I thought my dish tasted sweet, and was desperately waiting for a little 'sing' of CHHILLI but alas I am still waiting. But husbnad's dish was the real clanger - in all our years of eating Thai we have never met a Peanut sauce based dish that didnt have any taste or physical evidence of peanuts. After comparing the 2 dishes visually, my husband finally grabbed the attention of the wairtress and asked politely if there had been a mistake - she half heartedly replied that it was no mistake and this was what he had ordered. After eating a mouthful it was blatantly obvious this was not the case. After several attempts to again flag the attention of the waitress (she was too busy literally running through the resturant from back to front reception to acept payments, takaway orders etc) my husband took himself up to the front reception desk - and then the owner/chef came down to see him. Again my husband politely pointed out that this dish did not match or tadte like the dish he ordered.
This man then told my husband that there were 2 types of peanut sauce - one with lots of peanuts and poured over the top of the dish and one where there were less peanut in making the sauce and it was stirred through the dish - which he tried to say was what my husband had as his dish - but when my husband asked WHY both our dishes had exactly the same flavour base (mine was just a shade sweeter) and neither tasted in any way like it had even been near a peanut - the opinion of the chef/owner was you get what you get!
That was enough to ruin our dining experience all together. I finished my meal and we left. The sweet little runabout waitress smiled and said was everything good, did you enjoy your meal. And when my husband said 'NO everything was not all right and I did not get what I ordered" she just looked blankly at him and the dish that stood still sitting on the table. We then asked for the bill.
Head man/chef/owner appears again and asks what my husband was not happy about. Again my husband politely explained that in 30 years of eating Thai cuisine - Thai is his favourite cuisine - he had never come across a dish like this that bore no resemblance to the main ingredients it supposedly was made from- again chef said I have been cooking for 16 years and my customers are happy with the dishes they get.
So sadly I have to say a BIG FAT NO WAY to ever going back there again. This type of attitude drags the business right down in my eyes. read more