Monsoon Siam — Restaurant in Charlottesville

On the way home from some shopping we passed by Monsoon Siam in Charlottesville, a charming old home turned into a restaurant of white concrete exterior, colourful lights and multi coloured umbrellas, this spot is a local favourite, with outdoor patio and indoor seating options. Feeling hungry, we stopped for a light dinner. The food was wonderful, we could not have been disappointed. Recent reviews raved about food quality, and we agree.

Food: Appetizer Moo Sam Chan is a fried crispy pork belly served on a spring mixed bed with sriracha sauce. It was crispy as advertised, the flavour of the meat was rich, the fat melted in the mouth, the sriracha sauce came on the side and meat tasted good by itself without the sauce too.

Entree Our Drunken Noodles was flavourful, warm, little spicy which built overtime, the spice level contributed nicely to the flavour of the food and did not overpower. It was perfect to the palate. The portion size was generous for the noodles, we split the entree and the appetizer.

Beverages: Iced Thai tea was very tasty. Singha Beer was a nice lager to enjoy for the evening.

Service: We very much enjoyed the food but we felt the service was lacking tonight, our waitress was in a green sweatshirt seemed inconvenienced by us and rushed us in every interaction we had with her, we saw her acting in a similar manner with other tables, when my partner asked about a beer they offered, she ordered it without confirming with us and left the table that caused confusion and we called her back, I asked to keep a menu on the table before too which she took it away anyway. Later in the evening when a new table arrived she did not offer any introduction or greeting, the same way she didn't for us. Instead, she gave the new table their menus and said that the kitchen closes in one hour and walked away. In addition to this we sat for 15 mins before we placed our order, once we placed the order the food came extremely quickly, kudoss to the kitchen staff, the drinks came after the appetizer.

Overall we had a nice evening and a tasty bite to eat while passing through town we enjoyed the food and would enjoy returning to try some more, that said while this local favourite will be somewhere we continue to visit, we hope that owners invest more time with the wait staff to help them treat guests with more warmth and...

Very RUDE service, FORCE you tip more. WRONG tip and tax calculation. URGE you to LEAVE after one hour of seating.

First, we only have five people and they added 20% tip automatically and the even the tip is taxed. I googled 'group tip' and I cite here “many restaurants add an automatic gratuity to parties of six or more; often the gratuity is set at 18%.”. Only five people, why automatic 20% tip?? And I've never seen in any restaurant that the tip is taxed. They TAX the TIP!! It's insane! Why do I need to pay the tax for the income of the other people??

The waitress/manager is super rude. One of my friends has special diet needs. She ordered a Thai tea and the rest each of us, ordered a main dish and a drink per person. It's already a big amount of bill. When my friend starts to eat her own home-made food, the waitress came and told us no other food is allowed. We agreed to take it away. While I was helping my friend packing and my friend wants to have last several bites, less than three minutes, another waitress/manager came to yell at us furiously, "the waitress told you to TAKE IT WAY! !" SO RUDE!!

Less than one hour (from we sat down, including looking at the menu, waiting for the food, eat and chat with friends), while our plates are still half-full, the waitress came and asked us whether we want a box. I only ate at this restaurant for two times. The first time is last year in May, the waiter came at least for four times to ask whether we finished the food and at the last time they said they have 90-minute time limits for seating. WHY DON'T YOU LET THE CUSTOMER KNOW at first?? The 90-minute includes the time of ordering and waiting for food. This time, they urge us to leave in less than ONE HOUR! Ridiculous!!

The food is just mediocre and you can easily have the same one at other Thai restaurant for cheaper price. It's just the location. It's at downtown area so the restaurant shows the attitude like "I don't care about you and there always will be people coming". I will never go there again. It's a small place, nice decoration but too crowded. If you want to over pay ($125 dollars for four main dishes and five cups of tea+ automatic tip and+ wrong calculated tax) and feel the urge of leaving your seat soon, you can try this place. There are too many better options...

I ordered a coffee and Penang curry with vegetables. My husband ordered the pad Thai with chicken. They didn’t have hot coffee so I agreed to a Thai coffee after the server reassured me it was unsweetened(it was sweet). That was not bad. We had salads which were delicious and had a wonderful Asian dressing on them that reminded me a lot of a dressing I used to have as a child when my dad would take us out to his favorite Asian restaurant. My Penang curry was delicious and mildly spicy as advertised. My husbands meal smelled of bad food so much so that I told him not to eat it. At first we thought it was the bean sprouts. We have grown our own sprouts before and know they can go bad very quickly. So he scraped them off and stirred in the peanuts and the smell was overwhelming. He decided to say something to the server and the server claimed it was the fish sauce. Both my husband and I have eaten food with fish sauce and have cooked with it many times it is the only way to get that true Asian flavor your are looking for. Well we disagreed and the server was nice and took it back and I shared mine because we all know what happens when you ask for a new dish of something. After our lunch the server brought us our check and charged us for the pad Thai. I was really disappointed by this. He still insisted that it was...