Longrain Restaurant & Bar

6.8 Recommended

Food  8      Ambience  6      Service  8      Value  5     

6 of us went there for dinner last week for my wife's birthday. Food was well above average but too expensive I thought. It is a nice place, but you cannot have more than a couple of drinks as you will otherwise go bankrupt.

Apr 01, 2009 

8.5 Highly Recommended

Food  9      Ambience  10      Service  9      Value  6     

The food, Cocktail's and service was excellent. It was a Lovely night. Unfortunately, when the bill came we didn't have sufficient change leaving over $50 to be returned to our party of 4. After 25 minutes lapsed we requested our change. With the reaction of the staff it was apparent that they'd assumed that this was their tip.

The service deserved a tip but it was unfortunate that the staff obviously use this tactic to secure the overpaid amount. It's common courtesy that the tip should be based on the customers discretion. A disappointing end to what could have been the perfect dining experience.

Mar 05, 2009 

8 Recommended

Food  9      Ambience  8      Service  8      Value  7     

I came to Longrain with a wonderful chef friend of mine and we both enjoyed ourselves immensely. We sat and drank a cocktail each (I liked the swirl of fresh lemon zest on top) whilst waiting for our table to be served dinner. After half an hour or so, we were catching up anyhow, we sat at the communal seating.

Ordered entree of betel leaves (excellent, flavour explosion), the twice-cooked pork, and my personal favourite and thereafter weakness, the ocean trout wrapped in banana leaf with red curry and coconut cream. It was the best Thai dish I've ever had, and I've been to Thailand. Service was fine, value for money, food baby was showing and paid 75 a head. Loved it.

Feb 19, 2009 

8.5 Highly Recommended

Food  10      Ambience  8      Service  8      Value  8     

I have been to this restaurant many times now and each time the food is exceptional. The porkbelly, massaman beef and eggnet are ones that you must try!
You can't book but it does get busy so good to turn up early. If you do book, the bigger the group the more chance you have of getting the back room to yourselves but otherwise it's a mess hall type set up so if you're not used to rubbing shoulders with people you don't know then this isn't your place. Be careful with the cocktails as they can become very pricey. Parking can be a bit of an issue too.

Feb 15, 2009 

9.5 Highly Recommended

Food  10      Ambience  10      Service  10      Value  8     

Even better now that the "cool kids" have stopped showing up. Still a painful wait, but it's worth it for awesome cutting edge Thai food, from a kitchen that's obsessive about the food that comes out. We once (back in 05) received a tragically under-spiced, over cooked curry. It was whisked away for forensic examination by the kitchen, and they returned with a much improved replacement, comped our entire meal and apologised profusely.

We've since been back many times, and whilst there have been many staff changes someone always comes over and says hi to us. Outstanding food, great atmosphere, and prices commensurate with the outstanding kitchen. They deserve their 2nd chef’s hat back, but I secretly hope they don't get it. I like the place better now :)

Jan 30, 2009 

8.3 Highly Recommended

Food  9      Ambience  8      Service  8      Value  8     

Fresh ingredients and great depth of flavours. I'm not normally a person who enjoys the communal eating environment, but the way this is set up is great.

Jan 29, 2009 

8 Recommended

Food  9      Ambience  8      Service  8      Value  7     

Food was excellent, and have to agree with previous reviewers, the guy organising the tables was very abrupt, such a shame as it was my first time here and I was hit with that as soon as I arrived. However, food was unreal, cocktails were great. The waitress in the bar area was outstanding and handled 50 patrons all herself. Well Done!

Jan 07, 2009 

4.5 Below Average

Food  9      Ambience  4      Service  2      Value  3     

Party of 6 we arrived at 7 pm we were told the wait would be an hour to an hour and half, we were ok with that but come 9 pm I asked if it would be much longer as people who had arrived after us were being seated and the senior staff shoved his notebook in my face and said "show me who has been seated before you" and then proceeded to tell us that 3 didn't go into 6 we really wanted to tell him that it did, but we also wanted our table.

So another 15 minutes passed and we were finally seated. The food was great but I don't think worth it for the wait and the rudeness. I don't think my experience was a chance encounter see other reviews

Jan 03, 2009 

8.5 Highly Recommended

Food  10      Ambience  9      Service  7      Value  8     

Been here many times now and think the best time to go is for a really late dinner around 9.30/10pm or book for lunch. Avoid the 6pm mad dash for seats which occurs because they don't take bookings for dinner. The pork hock is an absolute must and even if you don't drink cocktails, they are worth a try. Go for the long white cloud. I would be leaving the latin lover for the ladies though!

Dec 24, 2008 

5.3 Average

Food  8      Ambience  7      Service  1      Value  5     

I will start by building the scene, 4 friends catch up for a relaxed night out and some delicious food Longrain style. What actually eventuated was 4 friends got bullied by agro Longrain staff and left the night $600 poorer and feeling like they had just walked out of a board meeting with the client from hell. Welcome to Longrain!

The wait for a table was expected and the cocktails with a side of cool tunes helped us to relax into our evening. The wait staff managed to get one of the cocktails wrong, but you will forgive anyone once. It all started when they said the table was ready. We very eagerly followed the wait staff to our long awaited pews and looked forward to finishing our cocktails whilst browsing the menu.

Mistake # 1...whilst the staff have no more to do than check out their section no one helped us with bringing our 1/2 full drinks over. Little did we know we are supposed to balance water glasses, cocktail glasses, bags and everything else on your walk over to the table. Pardon me for misconstruing this as good service in a top-notch restaurant.

After trotting back to the drinks table I found that our drinks had been taken (because surely everyone leaves $60 worth of cocktails half full when their table is called?!) and came back to the table a little disappointed. I thought that I would ask our waitress if she knew what had happened to them. Mistake #2: if looks could kill I would cold and 6 feet under as she confronted me about "Why did you not bring them over? Huh?”

She then asked her senior staffs to come and harass me with the same question! Sorry, was I trying to enjoy myself tonight!? In exchange they replaced one cocktail and slammed it down in front of me. From there we ordered copious amounts of food and wine, the wine was ok, the food was great, well done chef!

How you manage to be so creative and effective working with such a poisonous wait staff team is a miracle: well done you! I do have to say through, Phamish salt and pepper tofu beats yours (sorry!). We thought all was safe to get the bill and we hit on mistake # 3: expecting the bill to be correct. By this point I had passed all waitress related duties to my husband, he is 6'3" and less blonde than me so I thought he would be safe with the crazed woman alleged to be a waitress.

Opps… I was very wrong. Upon checking the bill we saw that our "free" replacement cocktail had been added onto the bill. Please don't do this to us! We just wanted to have a relaxing night out! Upon my husband identifying (very politely may I add) the mistake he was confronted by the waitress by "Well I didn't do it!" At which point I didn't know whether to laugh my head off or go and shake the woman. We managed to pay the bill (- cocktail) and leave relatively unscathed, $600 poorer and a lot more stressed.

Thank you Longrain.

Dec 21, 2008