No hurry for curry

Having just undertaken some fiercely expensive home improvements, I could only boggle at what had gone into the creation of Saran Rom, a 'luxury Thai restaurant'. Jeez, this must have cost squillions. Everything about the place screams excess. Even on a budget, the Thai tendency is towards fabulous gaudiness but, with a few bob you get, well, Saran Rom.

At Imperial Wharf's riverside high-rise estate for those with more money than personality, a forest of teak apparently recreates the banqueting rooms of Bangkok's Vimanmek Palace. Super-smiley staff are draped in jewel-coloured silks; even the floral arrangements look as though someone has pillaged a tropical garden. I don't even want to think about the ecological implications.

There are tuk-tuks to ferry locals to and from the restaurant and loos that gently massage your bits into spanky cleanliness with water and warm air. Apparently. None of this was happening the night we visited. Nor was much else. Why, in the name of all that's sensible, do you fling all this money at a project then totally overlook the important elements: food and service?

We waited three-and-three-quarter hours without anything to eat. A quarter of an hour was spent falling like rabid hyenas on the weeny portions of sustenance that eventually put in an appearance. That's four flaming hours in a cavernous space where the air conditioning had gone feral and blasted out gelid gusts: we and our fellow diners sat in coats and scarves, shivering and drinking miserably.

A man at the next table finally lost the plot: turning as purple as his velvet jacket, he bulldozed through the restaurant bellowing: 'This is bulls**t!' It got him some attention. I could only look on in admiration; my innate nellyness meant we continued to be ignored. A woman sobbed quietly. I don't know what her problem was - at least she had had some dinner.

For long periods, staff disappeared entirely. Finally, fuelled by alcohol, I went in search of something. Food? Explanation? Apology? Anything?

I found a bunch of them in a crisis huddle by the lavs. 'Your food is coming,' the manager told us, his smile having imploded by now into a fixed rictus. He made great show of putting two warmed plates in front of us. An hour later, they had gone as cold as the rest of us.

I'm tempted not to bother telling you about the food but what the hey. It aims at Royal Banquet standard but falls several levels short. Chor ladda, usually delicate, pastel-hued and intricately carved dumplings, turned up as gnarly little bullets stained a worrying shade of loo-flush blue; roti was less the sinfully buttery and flakey Thai indulgence, more like an apologetic paratha. Curries were sound: fresh, bursting with aromatics, studded with authentic Thai pea aubergines but, by the time I got mine, I really couldn't have given a monkey's.

I try to be fair and make allowances for our inevitable earlydays visits. But any sympathy disappeared with our bill. It arrived staggeringly promptly - without a single deduction. I did something I've never done before and refused to pay the service.

Faced with this show of defiance, the manager vanished. Half an hour later, we were still waiting to pay the rest of the bill. Tethers snapped, we got up and retrieved our coats from the reception, telling them we still hadn't paid. Still nothing happened. So, watched by a handful of the staff, we slowly walked out. Another first. None of the staff said a word.