The Thai Garden — Restaurant in Oaxaca

Mostly disappointed here.

Food 2 stars. My wife ordered the pad Thai and it came with a strong burnt flavor. My wife is a chef and makes a better pad Thai than I've had anywhere in Mexico but like dummies we still order it everywhere we find Thai restaurants and are disappointed 9/10 times. Granted the bar has been set really high for me, especially after having visited Thailand recently but when we complained to who we thought was a server, he said that this is how the dish is prepared. Excuse me sir but you can't pull the wool over our eyes on this one. pad Thai sauce has a high level of sugar in it typically and if left just a few seconds too long in the wok it can go past caramelization to burnage so easily and this is what we detected had happened but when when my wife pulled the "I'm a chef card- which she does reluctantly thank god- the dude said "so am I" to which my wife replied, "oh yeah? what kind of cuisine do you specialize in?" - thinking that perhaps he was a cook, moonlighting as a server but to our surprise he said, "Thai; this is my restaurant" a little embarrassing I have to admit but he offered to replace for another dish but my wife wanted that dish, just not burnt, at which point the owner said that this was they way that they prepare it there and that it's a particular style that most people really love, etc etc. That was the end of that convo.

I ordered the pineapple fried rice which is a dish I fell in love with in Thailand but they missed the mark so hard here. First off this dish is supposed to be served in a hollowed out half pineapple, which though probably doesn't impart much extra flavor, is part of the fun of the dish but it came out naked on a plate. When I asked the server why it was not served in the presentation stated on the menu he ad-libbed his response saying that they ran out of pineapples but shortly after this the dude at the table next to us got the same dish in a pineapple. All in all not a big deal except the flavor was super flat. I had to add a ton of salt, lime and hot sauce to bring this dish up to a mediocre+ status.

Usually if the meal falls flat we won't bother with dessert at a place however they had mango sticky rice on the menu which is a dessert I had never heard of before going to Thailand and have been missing it ever since and they did a pretty good job here. This is what earned the place a 2 star rating on the food instead of a 1 star.

To be fair, the owner took my wife's dish off the bill even though she picked around and ended up getting through most of it after identifying the burnt portion and eating around it plus adding a ton of hot sauce to level it up. We live in Mexico and travel around a lot and find that a lot of places don't care and charge you for items you return or complain about anyway and even though my wife opted to keep her dish, owner man took it off the bill anyhow and offered an apology and agreed that it's all about customer satisfaction in the end and largely because of this was able to rescue a 4 star overall rating despite the the wide miss on both entrees.

pro tip: if you get the sticky rice, ask for salt and give it a little sprinkling. the best places in Thailand served it salted and it takes the dish to...

The restaurant is pretty typical for the area with a downscale beachy vibe with mostly outdoor, uncovered tables and fairly loud music playing. We ordered two different dishes, the red curry and the pad thai. Now, after living both in Thailand for many years and now living in a very Asian area with amazing Thai food, our expectations were probably a bit higher than the average visitor here. The shrimp pad thai was ok, no peanuts and little sauce but the flavor was acceptable, No veggies or garnish to speak of. The shrimp were good size and tasty. Portion size was moderate, enough for one person anyway. The red curry on the other hand was best described as curryish. A sweet flavor with little coconut milk taste. It was full of vegetables to be sure, but not really the right ones and they were chopped too fine with the overall effect a sort of a chop suey. The amount of rice provided was pretty miniscule, perhaps 1/2 of what it should have been, and that is being generous. Overall more than a bit...

Food was ok, but it nothing to do with Thai. Red curry tasted more like Chinese sweet and sour. I asked for tofu in the vegetarian one, had to pay extra for that even though it were literally 2 tofu pieces of 0,5 cm each.

My boyfriend got his dish after 45 minutes after ordering, and only when he was finished (like 1 hour after ordering) I got mine. Saw multiple people with the same experience leaving unhappy with doggy bags.

Worst thing was that the chef was smoking in the kitchen above the food! Really incredible, especially when you have an open kitchen..

The waitress was extremely friendly though and the...