Flying Tiger Thai Restaurant — Restaurant in Castle Hills

Ambience, check. Been to this building before because it's been a few other, albeit different cuisine, dining establishments in the past decade. Enough parking, open entrance. They decorated with lights outside, booths as well as a patio available. Cultural kitschy adorns a few walls, good environment for conversations. Anyways nice to be able to hear each other.

Service, check! We were greeted in from the cold as soon as possible. Our server, Vanessa, is the daughter to the owner and was awesome. Vivacious Vanessa was insensitive, honest when she did not know something; attentive, but made sure to let us know we were free to take our sweet time with our dining experience. Speaking of sweet, we started with the sweet Thai Teas, which came in Kodak moment gigantically tall vessels. Yummy teas were as good as they looked!

Drinks and food, check! The best thing is that you could tell that even though everything came out reasonably quickly, it was definitely made to order. We ordered 3 share items. Fried Avocado, while not very Thai, came out toasty and delicious with a spicy mayonnaise. Five to the order. Fried tofu were a little plain, but that's why it came paired with a great sweet + sour sauce. The triangles were a little toasty for the first few seconds, then melted into your mouth! Tom Yum Soup comes with your preference heat level from 1-5. We chose a 1. Added the shrimp. There were about 3 shrimp for the extra charge, honestly a little rubbery, soup was a little lukewarm, but the spices were on point! The entrees we selected were the Pa Woon Sen, the Thai Fried Rice, and the Yellow Curry. With barbeque pork heat level 1, chicken heat level 3, and barbeque pork again but the heat level 3, respectively. Noodles were cooked well; I know how easy it is to get those potato starch noodles mushy in a hurry! Seasoning was excellent and flavorfully tossed in with bean sprouts, eggs, peas. Thai Fried Rice was again tasty, basic with eggs, onions, peas but flavorful. High heat factor. Yellow Curry was definitely a mild heat level, with potatoes and carrots, missing some greens! They know their Thai flavors well here, the seasoning was on point again.

Why missing the final star? I have to say the heat level was inconsistent, which might be very important to some serious Thai dining connoisseurs. The Yellow Curry, for example, was a 3 but had barely any heat, except one of us said he got a single spicy potato! Maybe the chili got stuck somewhere? We were commenting we could smell the spiciness from the Thai Fried Rice, in contrast to the curry, even though both were 3 heat levels. Was probably something like a 4 to 5. The Tom Yum Soup was a 1 but definitely had much more heat level and you could even eye the chili flakes. Also a 1, the Pad Woon Sen dish actually was the only dish that served like it was accurately prepared matching the heat level customization, with very mild spices. Other than that, the actual seasoning flavors for everything were marvelous.

Maybe have to return to see whether the spice levels were an honest mistake, because even if they were, minor...

BVOCAL4LOCAL.... UPDATE still AH-MAZE-ING. Vanessa will make you smile just by talking to her. She radiates warmth with her welcoming smile. Thanks Vanessa as always. And the food? Always the same. Fresh and delicious. I took a new friend on this visit and they said they were so surprised that the pictures posted looked like the food they were served. They complimented the freshness and the taste. Yum. I mean YUM! See you soon 😊

UPDATE Zoe was amazing. Food was great as always. I introduced this place to 5 people today. We all had leftovers to take home. And all five people said they would be coming back and bringing their friends as well. Of the multiple times I've been here, this is the first time I noticed there was a private party room. Zoe said just let them know and they could reserve the room. It looks like it can accommodate a bigger group. Would be a great celebration destination location. Also found out today that you could bring beer or wine. Need I say more 🙂........ What a treasure of a find. A friend of mine that is notoriously picky about Thai food suggested it. I will continue to speak to this person LOL. Great call. It's small and the early bird catches the table, sometimes. When it's cool outside they do have a patio area. Vanessa was our server. She was so kind so sincere and so knowledgeable. You could tell she was proud of the food and the restaurant itself. And speaking of the food, everything we ordered was incredible. Large portions. And incredible, I had to say that twice. From the appetizer of fried avocados, I know it sounds strange but seriously try them. My friend said there was no way they would even think about eating those, till they tasted one and then ate three LOL make sure to get your friend their own order. Cucumber salad was fresh and delish. Dinners were great. Seems like they're making things as you order. At least it tastes that way very fresh. And the dessert? You've got to try the mango and sticky rice, not real sweet just delicate and delicious. And I had the taro custard. There are no words. It actually reminded me of my mother's Mexican bread pudding. Moist and flavorful. If this isn't on your Thai radar, you need to schedule it in. My friend lives in the neighborhood and has already become a regular. I am not nearby the restaurant but I know what I'm going to suggest to that friend...

I noticed this place on Google maps, and thinking I had tried nearly every Thai restaurant in town, I immediately browsed the few reviews that existed. A photo of the beef pad see ewe caught my attention and looked very promising.

The menu had the basic Thai entrees, while offering a few new items I had not seen at other places, but once seated and browsing the menu, the garlic noodles caught my attention.

I normally rank Thai restaurants by their beef pad Thai, and being this was my first visit I was hesitant to order something else, but we decided to skipped the pad Thai, and instead share some beef pad see ewe and garlic noodles.

The food arrived after a short wait, maybe a little more than 10 minutes, and everything looked great. The portion of pad see ewe was large, and the amount of beef on the garlic noodles was very generous.

We both took a few spoonful's of each and took our first taste. The pad see ewe was a bit different, but not odd. I've had similar pad see ewe at what was once named "The best Thai restaurant in America" Lotus of Siam in Las Vegas. Their pad see ewe had this same distinct seasoning, and after talking to that restaurant, was told they import their spices from abroad. The noodles were coated in a powdery like seasoning that leaves them a bit gritty, but gives them this flavor. The flavor while decent, was lacking something, the main problem with the pad see ewe was that the noodles were clumping together.

The garlic noodles were pretty good, but the garlic had a little bit of an odd flavor. The bowl was layered with noodles on top of large lettuce leaf's, and topped with beef. The whole dish didnt taste like fresh pressed or diced garlic, but more like a garlic powder or maybe some kind of garlic paste. I wasn't sure what it was, but the flavor I feel, could have been better.

I would give the pad see ewe a 7.5/10 and the garlic noodles a 7/10.

The staff was very friendly, we spoke with them for a few minutes, and service was good. Food was fresh, portions were large, and...