Khalan Thai — Restaurant in Aguadilla

A Big Miss (food wise)

I keep disobeying my own warning, never go to a place with high expectations.

One small cultural issue, Buddha under the steps. Never can Buddha go under the feet. Symbolically, people are walking over Buddha, a No No in Thai Culture and in Buddhism per se.

FOOD:

First: No Curry Dishes when we went, they were out of a basic and iconic Thai dish. How can you operate a Thai restaurant without any curry dishes, blows my mind.

An insult to a dish, and to the term "Thai restaurant", which was first noted in a dictionary in 1873.

Pad thai: first time I've seen this version of this dish. I eat Thai food every week and host a Thai event monthly with over 30 cooks; so I'm extremely familiar with the food and culture, again, never had seen this Pad Thai version. Plus one of the members of our group is actually from Thailand....

This dish was too sweet. Some Thai dishes are sweet but this was not Thai sweet.

Second: we asked for Thai version hot. We got Mickey mouse hot...I personally don't like and can't tolerate Thai version of spiciness. But this wasn't even close even though we asked 3 times if it was Thai hot...Go figure.

The jasmine rice was a bit on the dry side.

Pork Ribs: all screwed up. Death was warmer. The meat was cold. Taste was good, but to get a cold dish again, boom, mind blowing! The waiter did say he would have it warmed up but as said in the NAVY, take time to do it right, there's always time to do it over.

The point, in my position, it to not have to correct the dish. The trial is to see if you can get it right when there were only about 8 people in the restaurant.

Sticky Rice, again a totally different version of the Thai version but, WOW! THAT WAS THE BEST OF ALL DISHES.

Mojito Crème brûlée, delicious but for me it's a fad (an intense and widely shared enthusiasm for something, especially one that is short-lived)

Tasted it and will never go back to it.

CUSTOMER SERVICE

AMAZING! Our waiter was extremely knowledgeable, present and caring and knew everything about the dishes.

BATHROOMS:

Clean and warming. Warmer than my food. Lol.

LOCATION

Easy to find and lots of parking. Beautifully decorated.

SUMMARY:

Great potential but, needs to grasp the quality control aspect to ensure plates are delivered as they should be and DEFINITELY cut down on the waiting for food time. We almost fell into next year waiting for our food even though there was just 3 tables with people.

RETURN FACTOR

50%

RECOMMEND A FRIEND FACTOR

0%

We really want this place to glow and we will return. Next time, we will post on YouTube. Hopefully, they have...

The good first..... The food took a while but it was worth the wait! We had the crab raggoons and they were amazing! For main course we had drunken noodles and they were expectacular. The sangrias with white and red wine delicious.

The bad..... Since we started seeing service was a little slow, we decide to order everything upfront so the food wouldn't have so much of a delay. Taking in consideration is a small place, with probably less than 15 tables but with Covid protocols and working on a reduce occuppancy (30%), and from what we could see the biggest table was 6 ppl and the rest couples and being not to crowded you would think service would be up to part, it wasn't the case. Time frame for everything we ordered: 10 minutes for 2 beers 25 minutes for 1rst appetizer. We had asked for a 2nd appetizer (pork dumplings)but it never arrived. 20 minutes to get the attention of at least the hostess to bring the sangrias and utensils. Our waitress Vicky just took our order and didn't come back to our table for the rest of the night, not even to check up on our drinks. 45 minutes main course I had to go inside to get the waitress so she provide us with the takeout boxes and the check. 15 more minutes passed and that moment we wanted to leave. At this point we could have walked out and they wouldn't have noticed. But we decided to do the right thing. Since our check wasn't coming we got up and walked to the bar to pay. 7 more minutes and we finally saw Vicky again. We payed and got out. It was very dissapointing to have this first impression of a place that we thought it would be great. Work on your service if you want to keep new and regular clients coming. Probably its better for takeout only. Plus attention should be equal for all clients; not just because you receive tourists in your restaurant should not mean locals should receive less. Why do I say this? Our same waitress, Vicky was apparently more interested in an american couple which by the way came like 30 minutes after us and was promply assited with everything and even the check was brought to their table. The worst feeling for a client is to be COMPLETELY IGNORED and showing no effort to change the situation is even worst. Im not one to complain ,but by far this is the worst resturant I've visited. I could go to Chili's and have better service. Educate ALL staff on client satisfaction and service and I assure you, your clientle...

Starting off our waitress Vicky was amazing and super sweet! She was very attentive and would check up on us. The other girls would come buy and check up. There was one who would bring us refills on our water, it was wonderful. The food took some time to come out but it was a fairly busy day and everyone did show up around the same time. Nevertheless the food was brought to us nice and hot. Extremely delicious and the portions were great! My husband and I had the Passion Fruit juice and it was not sweet mainly tart yet still very yummy. Everyone there was kind and I enjoyed the ambiance . The workers seemed it a very good mood and I even heard a someone in the back singing. Definitely livens up the dinning experience having employees in such a good and happy mood. Overall it was a great evening. The wait may be a bit longer than expected but I was there to enjoy a nice dinner with my husband so we definitely got a chance to just talk and enjoy each other's company while we waited for the food. I must mention again that Vickey was a spectacular Waiteress/Hostess. She is very sweet and had a lovely, positive and kind attitude the entire time. We will definitely be asking for her on our next visit! Thank you Vicky for being such a lovely person, to the rest of the staff for being kind and to the cooks thank you for the...