Baan Thai Wok & Bar — Restaurant in Saanich

I don’t order takeout very often, and when I do, I choose some thing that I wouldn’t usually make at home. My favourite type of food to order is Thai. The restaurant I usually order from was closed, so I decided to order from a restaurant that I don’t usually order from: Baan Thai at Royal Oak. I ordered takeout through DoorDash, which was part of the problem. Getting assistance with my order was incredibly difficult because of the third-party. Their app is designed in such a way that it dissuades anyone from following through on the process of receiving a refund or assistance of any kind in the event of a problem. When I arrived at the window, there were several DoorDash delivery folks standing around. Because I was picking up my order 30 minutes late, I politely stepped around them to grab my order, which was certainly ready. Before I even opened my mouth, the girl at the window barked at me that there were other people in front of me and I needed to wait. I said OK, and stepped to the back of the line. While I was waiting, she was bagging orders that were just being made. It didn’t really make a lot of sense to me that I had to wait for a bag that was on the other side of the counter that I had already paid for, and could see from the window. Regardless, I waited. I received my order and walked back to my car. Before driving away I decided to check inside the bag to make sure nothing was amiss. I almost laughed when I pulled out a small ramekin of curry sauce, that I had paid $8 for (and was advertised as a 6oz container). I walked back to the window where I was promptly ignored. After several minutes, I had to awkwardly speak up to get the attention of the girl behind the counter once again. When I showed her the container and explained that I paid $8 for it, she apologized and assured me they would prep the correctly sized container of sauce for me right away. I only had to wait a few minutes, I received a bigger container of sauce, thanked her for fixing things and drove home. After I got home, I began unpacking my food and to prepare eating it. I took a bite of my rice and noticed that they had given me plain rice instead of coconut rice. I could’ve made plain rice at home, and for much cheaper. I opened up my vegetables, only to realize that they were in fact completely raw! And when I tasted the curry sauce, it was incredibly salty and not very appetizing. I tried to contact the restaurant and they told me they were unable to help. I asked if they could either send to me an order that was of a quality I could eat with a delivery person, or offer me a refund. They advised me to go through DoorDash. To her credit, the woman I spoke to did offer me a phone number to call, as I had already tried to contact DoorDash and had absolutely no success. I outline all of these things to save you the disappointment of ordering from this restaurant and going through what I did. It’s my fault that I was hungry when I placed this order, but is that not the point of ordering takeout or going out for dinner? To do so when hungry? We work hard for our money, and with inflation as it is eating out or placing takeout orders is less accessible for most people. What I received from this restaurant in exchange for my money feels like an absolute scam. It’s worth noting that the restaurant did offer a credit, but I declined as I will never be ordering from this restaurant again. It’s not even worth my time to drive out there for free food. Apparently they were short staffed, but that shouldn’t make it impossible to provide your patrons with edible food when that is literally the only purpose of your business. If staffing is a problem, they could either limit takeout orders during peak hours, reduce the amount of tables in the restaurant, or straight up close the doors that day. So I lost an hour of my life driving to the restaurant, waiting for food, cooking my own vegetables, seasoning my own sauce, on hold with DoorDash, calling the restaurant, and writing this review. I gave one star because zero...

Not very happy with customer service!! I called and the first thing was the woman who answered said something so fast that I didn’t understand, so I politely asked if this is baan Thai ? She said YEAH ! Not very polite at all. Then I asked her about their Pad Thai as I was interested in placing an order. I told her that I’m allergic to tofu and I was wondering if I could exchange it for pork since on the menu it says add extra pork $8 and to add extra tofu was $8 as well. So I explained it to her and she abruptly said NO. She said pork is an add on fee of $8 And so I said I can’t have the tofu and you charge $8 for extra tofu so could I exchange no tofu and get pork instead. Again she just said no. I then asked her why ? Again she said because pork is an add on fee. Which I completely understand (but if I’m not able to get tofu then I’m paying almost $20 for just noodles ? , I didn’t say this ). But I did say I don’t feel that makes any sense since if I’m not getting any tofu you’re still making the same amount of money but there will be zero protein. And I again said , this makes no sense because tofu and pork are the same price to add extra ? She said, well that’s just the rules. ( again not very politely or kindly ). I wish I had asked to speak to a manager because it doesn’t seem right to pay almost $20 for a plate of rice noodles that cost literally $2-$3. Plus some sauce, peanuts & spices. Especially if tofu is an allergy I don’t understand why I just can’t exchange pork instead of tofu ? At this point I was upset and frustrated so I said “ thanks but i definitely won’t be placing an order again at this Baan Thai location “ Wow what lovely holiday spirit she had …. I personally don’t feel this is a big deal or a big ask , especially since I’m allergic to it. As i explained before who’s going to pay almost $20 for plate of cheap rice noodles with some sauce , spices and peanuts ?? I think that’s crazy. I feel there should be an option if you are allergic or don’t even like tofu to exchange for a protein of the same price like pork instead. Or say you want chicken. Well chicken was $9 extra but that’s if you get it with tofu. What makes sense is if someone wanted chicken and NO TOFU then you charge $1 extra etc. since tofu is an $8 charge for extra and the other and most important reason I haven’t eaten here in quite sometime now is because the last time we placed a to go order ( it was the lunch specials that used to be so cheap and now they are way more expensive). My mom went to pick it up and saw a woman chopping up veggies and at the same time she was blowing and wiping her nose with a Kleenex which she set down on the counter next to where she was chopping up veggies. I really didn’t want to share this and that’s actually why we’ve not ordered in a few years but that was so disgusting and super unsanitary and she was obviously not trained in food safe because after she wiped and blew her nose she placed the Kleenex back on the same counter space she was chopping veggies and never even washed her hands. I have eaten at other locations since then but I had refused to eat here at the Broadmead location because of that. Well my mom said I’m sure she’s no longer there ( hopefully) and my mom wanted some pad Thai too but I said I’ll call first to see if I can get it without the tofu and exchange for pork which was the same exact price as add on tofu. Then after this woman being so abruptly rude to me , I now know for SURE I won’t eat here again. And now I’m upset since it’s the holidays and was treated very rudely. Plus I’m upset that my mom doesn’t get pad Thai either as we are not going to drive all around to 2 different places since I can’t eat here because I can’t have the tofu. Oh and last time I asked about this maybe 3 years ago they had no problem changing my pad Thai to no tofu and actually changed it to chicken for free. That’s the kind of hospitality restaurants should strive for because my reviews get between...

I really don't understand how this chain in so unbelievably inconsistent. Asked for no salted radish in my pad thai but of course the server did not put it on there so it's full of them as usual. They really need to train their staff. I wouldn't specifically ask for something to not be in there if I didn't know it was. It's literally on the menu, I've legit had arguments with staff in the past about it being in there they were ADAMANT it is not in there and I made them look at the menu .. there is one server here in particular that consistently gives terrible service.. never comes to the table, screws up on the bill, she literally just stands in the corner talking to other staff. It's really annoying because sometimes everything is perfect and delicious and one of the servers is actually fantastic. Yet again, server was terrible, never came to the table to ask how our food was and of course the nachos were soggy but we were hungry so we just ate them. It was dead in there, no reason for them to be rushing with the nachos.. when someone finally came to the table I commented on it saying they should let the kitchen know and I thought it was just mine but my kid had soggy ones too. No apology or offer for replacement or anything. Really wish you could get them take out because I could just put them in the air...