Cockadoo Bar & Restaurant

If stylishly presented (expect a crispy adornment to some of your dishes) pan-Asian food within a smart, yet amenable, setting is what you are after, Cockadoo will meet your requirements. But the portions are on the small side and the prices steep - special house fried rice costs a recession-defying £6.95, for instance.

When I visited with half a dozen colleagues, I found myself suffering 'dish envy', as my starter of golden crispy catfish served with spicy mango salad was underwhelming - it was certainly spicy, but I'd hoped for a piece of fish; in fact it arrived finely ground. My colleagues who had the duck or the pork ribs seemed to have chosen more substantial offerings.

However, we decided to pool our main courses and dip in; the Massaman curry and Mongolian lamb seemed to attract particular praise and the mixture of rice dishes we had also ordered were tasty enough, particularly the special fried.

The selection at the bar was unremarkable, but included Doombar bitter and I chose this. Sadly, my pint was rather gassy.

The service was attentive, but discreet throughout.

Overall, I'd opt for somewhere in Oxford in future but it's worth noting that the restaurant offers a staff discount for people who work at the JR Hospital, Mini UK, RAF Benson, Oxfam or Unipart; also Oxford University Club members, Oxford Brookes University and South Oxfordshire District Council. The 20% discount is on food only, between Sunday and Thursday. OAPs can also get a 20% discount on lunch.

tarquin (Unverified), 09/11/11

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My partner and I had a hilariously disastrous meal here on Saturday 19 February, and if it weren’t for the fact that we were having a belated Valentine’s celebration meal, I fear we might have found the experience a little less amusing.

To begin with the restaurant was heaving and, having read good reviews on here, and it being recommended to me personally, I was looking forward to what I thought would be a very good meal. We were seated and waited patiently for about 10 minutes before deciding to grab the attention of a passing waitress to order a drink. Our G&Ts arrived roughly 10 minutes after that, which set the first gentle alarm bells in my head. The service was erratic throughout the entire evening and eventually we were served by no less than seven different members of staff. There is a reason good restaurants designate individual serving areas to staff.

Anyway, the meal was meant to be a special treat so we both decided to relax and go with the slower pace. We ordered a bottle of Viognier from their good and reasonably priced wine list along with our starters. I was being spoilt and having spotted lobster on the menu (hot and spicy Szechuan lobster: £32) I decadently decided to try that. My partner went for the more sensibly priced Chef’s special buttered king prawns (around £8). The food arrived in good time and although I was vaguely surprised to see the lobster in quite a thick sauce (I had imagined it dry, though there was no particular reason for that thought) the dishes looked good and I was very much looking forward to tucking in. A sly prawn pinched from my partner’s plate confirmed that yes, the battered prawns were good – large in size and delicately battered, they were no less than we were expecting, which is a good thing, because after that things went downhill.

While I had been busy pilfering off his plate my partner had decided he was going to steal some of my lobster. Gobbling down an easy to reach chunk he went peculiarly quiet. Having also just succeeded in cracking my first claw I immediately understood why. The lobster was grey, cold and slimy. Imagine my horror when further probing under the viscous sauce revealed that most of the dish seemed like it had not been properly cooked. We immediately informed one of the many waiting staff and politely but firmly declined their offer to redo the dish, asking them to remove it from our bill. I had to make do without a starter while I pondered the main courses. Another platter was brought to our table. Unbelievably they had brought the lobster back! Just to be sure, I checked again, and it was still the same. By this stage we weren’t really sure whether this was very funny or very dangerous and asked them again to please take the dish away and off of our bill. Thankfully this time they understood. 

For our main courses we ordered Mongolian fried Lamb, a Chicken Massaman curry, pan-fried Ostrich steak, Thai fried rice and Jasmine rice. The dishes arrived quite quickly after ordering and whilst there was nothing specifically wrong with them I found them all quite bland and uninspiring. The Massaman curry was the best dish by far, one of the nicest aspects of the dish being that the vegetables were very fresh and crunchy. The meat in every dish was uniformly rubbery and strangely textured. The sauces were gloopy, the Thai rice clumpy and the Jasmine rice was only just the right side of being cooked well. All in all it was a pretty poor show. After declining desserts we paid up (yes, they had removed the twice-served lobster) and left. Thankfully neither of us were ill.

Dr Mukti (DI User), 07/03/11

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Excellent Thai restaurant - up there with Chiang Mai. The food is fantastic (they have a vegetarian menu for us veggies) and the service is always friendly. I love the stylish decor and have never found myself admiring the cutlery in a restaurant before! One of my favourite restaurants in Oxfordshire.

JH, Abingdon (Unverified), 17/01/11

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I took my Thai wife here for her birthday dinner just before Christmas. Due to the snow, they weren't too full but the service and food couldn't have been better. We ate Japanese seaweed salad - not entirely Japanese with cucumber, bamboo, sesame, but beautifully balanced, one of the best dishes I've eaten for a long time. Then Szechuan Chicken - not the full strength Szechuan number (luckily - full strength Szechuan cooking is like a trip to the dentist!) - and Rendang Lamb, not as dry as I would expect in its native lands but exquisitely flavoured. So their claim of "Oriental fusion dining" is well borne out. Both of us were extremely happy, and the bill with 2 drinks apiece came to under £50 which I think is very reasonable for cooking of this standard. We'll go again.

Blaise and Boo (Unverified), 24/12/10

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