Baan Thai Wok & Bar — Restaurant in Oak Bay

DO NOT EAT HERE.

Immediately when I sat down I noticed the table had not been cleaned. The table had been fully set (wine glasses and everything) on a dirty surface. I pointed it out to my friend and she agreed it was gross. We were seated towards the front of the restaurant so the afternoon light was shining in which made it look even worse! The table was streaky with dried rice and remnants of other food stuck on the surface (we should have left then)…..I told a server and she wiped part of the table but it was dried on there so she didn’t get it all, and the other side of the table she didn’t wipe remained dirty…..

My friend ordered the red curry. She asked what spice level it came with and the sever said medium but if it was too spicy she could bring us extra coconut milk. I ordered Pad Thai and asked for extra bean sprouts. The server said I wouldn’t need extra bean sprouts as it already came with lots of bean sprouts.

Our food came and the red curry was too spicy for my friend, so I asked for extra coconut milk which the server brought. After mixing the pad Thai (with the bean sprouts on top) I still wanted more so I asked the server and she said there might be an extra charge. I asked how much and she said she was not sure, she said there will definitely be an extra charge for the coconut milk because “it’s expensive” but the bean sprouts might be free. She came back and confirmed it is $2 for extra coconut milk and $2 for extra for bean sprouts. I pointed out she did not tell us there would be an extra charge for the coconut milk. After deliberating she said again that “it is expensive” but she won’t charge us for it this time. I said okay and asked again for extra bean sprouts and consented to the extra charge.

At the end of the meal I asked for the bills. She really messed up the bills, but the most significant mistake was splitting the dishes instead of billing us for the dishes each of us individually ordered and customized. The $5 cost difference between our two orders was overall insignificant and I didn’t want to point it out, and wait for it to be fixed so we paid and left.

Overall my experience was terrible, my friend agreed the table was dirty (and not re-cleaned properly), the server did not communicate extra charges to us while trying to argue coconut milk is very expensive (it’s really not and neither are bean sprouts), she didn’t confirm how we wanted to be billed (and made wrong assumptions), and the food was mediocre (small portion of red curry and overly sweet pad Thai). I will not be back and I will not recommend Baan Thai to anyone. If you read this, be warned and go...

Well I always wanted to try this location. I had been to their Blanchard street location years ago and it was good but that was 15 years ago. So I was lured by the promise of happy hour specials and a live columbian singer. The singer was wonderful and added to the atmosphere but the food was something else.

The $6 sleeve of beer was cold at least.. lots of Phillips beer products which is top of the class. The skewers of pork was good and worth it but the tempeh was skimpy. Tiny little pieces for $4 each with their own dipping sauce. The pad Thai was $9 with little bits of tofu, a minuscule portion, overcooked and unappealing looking presentation. One could order protein ontop if it. I ordered seafood $10 and it had prawn, scallop and I don’t know if anything else but they were cold ontop of the mushy pad Thai. The entire dish was flat looking and just in appealing. I added chicken $7 on the other one and that one was better. The amount of food and questionable quality of the pad Thai was for me a rip off cost wise. Also ordered the lettuce wrap and it came in a nice small cast iron pan. The meat was lukewarm but tasty. So crazy since it’s in a cast iron pan it should be sizzling. The lettuce cups were baby romaine served with a ground pork mixture. Lettuce was and very fresh and I liked this dish despite it being cold. They lure you in but don’t deliver with a quality product.

I would have ordered more but I was not impressed by the pad Thai which should be a signature dish for a Thai restaurant and one as established as Baan Thai. I told waitress they were terrible when she asked. I somehow was point blank honest so she took the dishes back to the kitchen for the chef. To be fair they did offer to make something else for us but my appetite was already ruined by now so I declined. She later told me I would get a discount but instead they gave me a $10 coupon for next time on a $76 bill. Which after paying the bill I forgot to retrieve because it took so long to get the bill Maybe it was late night but the quality has to be good and consistent and happy hours are a good way to introduce diners to their restaurant so they really should be prepared nicely. If one has a bad experience even if it is happy hour they...

So let me start out by saying I really like Baan Thai. They are, in my opinion, one of the best Thai places in city. However my most recent visit with some friends left us all very unsatisfied with experience.

Myself and 2 friends arrived at roughly 6PM and got a table relatively fast. We then got our drinks, ordered our meals and some appetizers and waited. The appetizers came out in a timely fashion however our food did not. A table of 2 sat down beside us maybe 5-10 minutes after we ordered. They ordered, got their food, ate and left. We were a little perplexed by this, but thought maybe the kitchen was just busy. There was also a table of 5 that sat down after us and then they got their food before us. We hadn't been approached by any of the serving staff in this time (it was 715PM) so we piped up and asked what was going on. The server apologized and went to check. Our food was brought out to us at almost 720PM and we asked to have it packed up to go since we had to leave. The server was nice enough to comp us 25% for the inconvenience although we were never told why it took so long. We finally left the restaurant at 735PM still needing to eat after we got home.

When I arrived home and got into my curry I was then disappointed to discover that while there was plenty of beef, beans and the other solid parts of the dish it was very lacking on the curry aspect. In the past I have ordered that same dish for take out and there has been more than enough curry. This time it was only covering about a quarter of the dish. One of my friends also had way less veggies in her Baan Thai Garden than her partner who had ordered the exact same meal as her except with one added ingredient. Unfortunately they were unable to split what they had due to food allergies.

Again I would like to mention that I really enjoy the food at Baan Thai and I'm hoping that this is just a blip on the radar. I do not enjoy writing negative reviews and I believe this is my first. However my faith is currently quite shaken and it might be a while...