Just coming back from this restaurant and feeling very disappointed with the service!!
I had a pretty good impression when I went there for lunch on a Saturday, weather was nice and the patio was a good place to eat, the service was ok and the food pretty nice. Tonight I went there with 2 friends around 7:30pm, we took our time enjoying the evening, having drinks first and ordering food around 8;30, which is still a reasonnable time to eat. At 9:15pm, one of the waiters came to see us and told us that the kitchen was closing, so we needed to place last order... Last order, 9:15pm on a Thursday night in Shanghai, really??! What kind of a restaurant is that, the same one that advertises "Happy hour from 9 to 11 pm every night"?! Politely, we ordered our food, including deserts, which came pretty quickly and was quite good. And at 10:30pm, another waiter came to tell us that the restaurant was closing, handing us the bill... We couldn't believe it!! Again, 10:30pm on a Thursday night, not an independant small restaurant but part of a 5 restaurants chain in Shanghai?! The music was suddenly cut, and most of the lights too, one waiter was desperatly waiting for us to pay and leave, playing with the lights until it was almost completly dark.
For a 1000 RMB bill, we can call it a shame! Not doubt we will not return to this place but I will not forget to call the Manager of this restaurant, who obviously, was out of town tonight!!!

Here is where I wished I had read-up on the place, but it was a spur of the moment thing. "Hey look, a Thai place, let's go I am hungry".

So they sport the name Lapis. You would assume, dare I say expect, the place to be up to snuff as they have a shop that sells interior deco items. Wrong. For the prices they charge (this is not a 2$ place) it just genuinely looks cheap. Crappy furniture, not even a place mat or any type of effort to lay out a table. No vibe, no ambience. You either sit in musk darkness or an over-lite veranda. We opt the later to have a view of the pond. Arguably the best thing about the whole venue. The waitresses zombie around like they hate their life (and yours). The cleaning ayi caries buckets of bleach passed the table mid-lunch time (!). The music blasting some weird French techno rap stuff.

But you could forgive all that is the food was good, right? Scrap that hope... Fish cakes that leak oil. The shrimp broccoli should be renamed to broccoli with a pair of shrimp. The beef masssaman was a total joke = sweeter than dessert because of a barrel of cream. This dish is listed as a 'double pepper' aka spicy. Retarded. The minced pork had equal double pepper listing and did have a kick. But for an average of 60rmb/dish, you simply expect better. Better flavors, better meat (4 pieces of cartilage/beef in the massaman?), better presentation. Their idea is to serve the food on really big plates, so that tables are stacked with 3 orders. Pathetic.

And what is with the rice? Even at the up-scale Thai places the rice is free flow. And fresh. Here you get yesterday's left over at 5 bucks a mini bowl.

But we could have been warned = the other reviews are more of this rant. They are not wrong...

We went there on a thursday night and even though we were 20 mins late, the staff promptly showed us our table.
The waitress took our order with minimum fuss but thats (unfortunately) as good as it gets.
The food was the most disappointing. We ordered the mandarin fish but this was very boney and had little meat on it.
The red duck curry had hardly any duck and we had to wait a long time before they brought us our bowls of rice so we could actually eat the curry.
The spicy chopped pork and lettuce leaves was quite tasty.
We ordered singha but they didn't have any cold ones, so then we asked for qingdao but again no cold ones, so we just went for corona.
The pineapple & shrimp fired rice was ok actually but the broccoli veg. was typical shanghai oil-drenched veg. The satay sticks were tasty but no satay sauce!
Next was desert, the 3 deserts we wanted they didn't have, so just had to settle on a cocunut sago - portion size was very small.
We ordered a latte and cappucino and both must have been sitting on the counter for ages because not even a little bit hot.
Finally it was really difficult to find the waiting staff, they kept running past us, and to get the simplest service (eg. we asked for serving spoons for the curry & rice etc.) was a struggle. Granted they were probably understaffed, but heh.. hire more staff.
We waited ages for the bill and at that stage just wanted to get out of there.

In conclusion, the surroundings are pleasant, the price was reasonable, the food was very disappointing and the service was just non-existent.

Will not return.

After trying the usual suspects for Thai food in this city I figured it was time to branch out. Lapis Thai was the next on the list of places to try.

We ordered the pad Thai, fried chicken with mango, morning glory, spring rolls and the green curry. The spring rolls were nothing particularly special and the pad Thai was far from the best I’ve had in town. The noodles were too thin and there were too many sprouts. The morning glory was standard – although that’s a hard one to mess up. The best two dishes were the fried chicken with mango and the green curry, which had a unique spicy kick to it that I haven’t had at other places in town – loved it!

The service was lackluster. We were sitting in the back, so maybe it was easy to forget us. The only time anyone came by our table was to take our order and bring the food. We literally had to shout across the room to get their attention to bring us our bill and boxes to go. The décor was pretty typical of what you’d see at other Thai restaurants in town. The price was pretty reasonable. The five dishes and a bottle of wine was just under 600 RMB (for two people).

I don’t think I would recommend Lapis Thai. There is better Thai in the city, even though they are more expensive. But if you need a Thai fix and the others are all booked, this is a good third choice.

It is my birthday. I went for the afternoon tea and an early dinner.

I can't really said they have bad service, as they have no service at all because there are no staff around.

As it a beautiful day, I wanted to seat outdoor but the table is so dirty, covered with dust. The waiter who bring me the menu, don't even bother to wipe the table and just put the table mat on the dusty table.

1st point down for CLEAN outdoor seating during spring n summer. But they do have a nice outdoor seating area, as the setting is beautiful. Personally, cleaniess is an issue here.

I have to move inside as their WIFI coverage, did not cover outdoor area.

2nd point down, if you want to somewhere with strong signal.

After I put through the order. They forgot about my drink until I asked for it. I ordered a wine and a tea with my afternoon tea set. The wine came but not the tea.

3rd point down, if you are really thirsty.

There are no staff around to give you any service at all.

4th point down, if you are after some attention. But one point up, if you want to be on your own.

Payment time, it really pissed me off. I asked for the bill, the gal came with the bill and just stand at the table waiting for me. I have no choice but to check the bill NOW and pay. As I am checking it, she is padding the credit card machine on her palm, which is a sign of "pay up, quick". It really annoying.

5th point down, pay up NOW and leave.

I will not go back again. It my birthday and they have give me a bad experience.

Ada

Went on a tues evening and sat on the top floor where the service was non-existent. first dish out was the roast duck curry, which was ok, but there was more duck skin than duck. we had asked for rice and that didn't come until we actually had to make a phone call to the restaurant to have someone pay attention to us and bring us rice.

second dish was tom yum gung, decent, yet a bit on the salty side. the last main dish was the steamed fish. a bit fishy for my taste but still edible until we flipped the fish over and found out the mid-section was still frozen.

always room for dessert, we ordered mango sticky rice. this must've been the skimpiest portion of mango that i have ever seen! it was the size of a slice of bacon resting next to a mound of CHINESE sticky rice! nice try, but seriously, how can you screw this up?

the space is nice, too bad the service and food that we ordered did not match up. i would think twice about coming back, it's too bad. the only good thing was that the manager was professional enough to not charge us for the fish.