Thai (Mini Cookshelf S.)

Takeaway Restaurants - How To Find The Perfect Takeaway Meal

How do you find the best takeaway restaurant in your local town? Generally speaking it's the luck of the draw, everyone has their favourite haunts. You find a particular Indian or Chinese takeaway restaurant and if your experience is generally a good one then it's a good bet that you're going to stick with it and probably recommend it to your family and friends.

But there are many factors that make a restaurant your regular takeout:

• The proximity of the restaurant to your home, is it within walking distance or if you are not able to leave the house does the restaurant have a good delivery service. Or is the food so good that it's worth the trouble to go pick it up yourself.
• The quality of the service, are they helpful over the phone when taking your order and do they have good knowledge of the local area in order to provide a quick delivery service. Is the food always packaged professionally on receiving it and most importantly is it hot.
• Is the restaurant flexible in the way it takes payments? It's always good practice to ask about methods of payment when you make you order. There's nothing more embarrassing than when your takeaway arrives, you have your cheque book out and before you can say "who do I pay it out to", the delivery guy says "sorry, we don't take cheques".
• Is the restaurant presented in a professional manner? It's obviously very important to know that your food has been prepared in the most clean, tidy and hygienic environment possible. This also goes for the staff as much as the restaurant itself.
• Do the restaurants provide a good enough service that allow's you to order your food with the minimum of fuss? Do they give you as much information as possible so that you can make the best decision possible in making your order? Of course the tried and trusted takeaway leaflet or menu posted through your letter box is a restaurant's bread and butter with regards to focusing your attention on their menu. But you know how it is, a week down the line and you're looking for that Chinese takeaway menu that came through the door but just can't find it anywhere. It's like there's a takeaway menu black hole that exists in your hallway a couple of feet from your front door. As soon as you pick it up with the rest of the post it's destined never to be seen again. Even if you put it somewhere safe ready for the first time you use it, come the second time round you realise you weren't so careful and the black hole has taken it's latest unfortunate takeaway menu victim.

The restaurants that really care about their customers give plenty of alternatives to the enigma of the disappearing menu. One such measure is offering their menu online, this way the menu is always accessible. A lot of restaurants do indeed have their contact details and address online but what use is that if there's no menu to go with it. You obviously cannot ring them up and ask them to read out their menu for you. With the restaurant details and menu easily accessible on the internet, you can order your meal with the minimum of fuss without running frantically around your house looking for a takeaway menu that was condemned to the menu black hole a long time ago.

If a restaurant has gone to the trouble of providing this quality of service you can be sure that the food isn't that bad either!