My partner and I visited Ka Pao on Christmas Eve. We had a reservation booked. There were a couple of large parties, but overall it was not a full house.
We were sat in the middle of the dining hall, which is an awkward seat. It was also unnecessary because there were several booths that were open right behind us and that remained so the entire duration of our meal. When we were sat, our candle was unlit, which surprisingly made a big difference in the overall dimly lit dining hall. No-one bothered to turn it on for us or swap it out. When my partner asked a passing waitress, it seemed as though we were bothering her. This is how the rest of the service felt.
We placed our order, and were not warned of anything on the menu. Seeing as the menu is very descriptive of "most" things, e.g. the bottom is an entire allergen list, we just ordered whatever sounded good to us. That was a mistake. Every dish we started with was incredibly spicy (specifically the tomato aubergine dip and the crispy pork belly). How do you dedicate the time to list if things have sulphites and mustard BUT not spice? It makes absolutely no sense and almost ruined our entire dinner. This wasn't a light spice - it was all you could taste. Thankfully, the corn ribs and fried chicken contained little to no spice and by then we had ordered some additional rice (although it took nearly half hour to come out).
Drinks were subpar, and when I asked the waitress if they could make a house/classic margarita, she denied saying the bar only makes the drinks on the menu - that's weird seeing as there was an orange margarita and all you need to do to make a house margarita is ... withhold the orange. This isn't the case at Ox+Finch, and so it was even more surprising.
Standouts: corn ribs, fried chicken and the crispy pork belly (minus whatever dressing tastes like you're just eating straight chillies), almond and cardamom sponge dessert.
Fails: aubergine dip, stir-fried cod cheeks, and the mango calamansi soft serve (tart, yes, but also extremely bitter), service. read more