Silk Thai Restaurant — Restaurant in Charlottesville

The atmosphere is nice. I went in after a doctor's appointment, before a long drive home. The food is not bad, but not stellar, either. The service was severely lacking-- I am pretty sure my 1st server left and it seemed like he didn't tell anyone he had a table, because I wasn't checked on after my food's arrival and sat about 30 minutes after I was done waiting for a check, which was brought to me by someone else. I had pad thai in the restaurant, and a piece of char siu pork made its way into my vegetable dish, which isn't great as cross-contamination goes. I can't process alpha-gal, so if I'd eaten that pork, my guts would have been wrecked. Now I'm going into personal nitpicks that probably don't apply to most diners. The pad thai sauce was off to my taste. Maybe it had sat open a while, or was burned? I've had other restaurants serve me a more barbecue or "smoky" pad thai, though, so it could just be their recipe. There was no detectable fish sauce, either. It wasn't bad, it's just not what I crave when I crave pad thai. I brought home drunken noodles; they offer spice 1-3 on menu, but you can request "5 star" spice. I feel the noodles are a bit overcooked and mushy, but this could be due to sitting in a Styrofoam box. The level 5 spice is adequate, but nothing that will make a real spice-chaser's lips tingle. What disappointed me was, like many cheaper places, their heat comes directly from chili seeds in the food. I find this a less pleasant eating experience; I am much more impressed with a homemade chili oil for heat. A few seeds are expected, but when it's hard to chew your food through the seeds, it's a little much. But, at least they gave me spicy...I'm a middle-aged white lady, so I did get double-checked by the server that I sincerely wanted extra-spicy. 🤣 I have been quite a few places where I asked for extra spice and got a very mild "that white lady" dish. All in all, it was a good experience, and I would go again, but I'll be choosy...

My primary meal was chef's fried rice with chicken. Unfortunately, the rice was mushy...as if someone had mixed it too much with a spoon instead of fluffing it with a fork. Also, there were only 2 tomatoes (you can see them in the picture). So that ruined the dish for me, but the chicken in the dish was good. My older son had Massaman curry - comes with rice, and he got chicken. He said it was really good. The chicken was one whole piece, though (he thought it was going to be chopped up in the curry). My younger son had the chicken yellow curry, and like his brother, he really liked his dish too - gave it a 9.5 out of 10. Again, though, the chicken was a whole piece, not chopped up in the curry. My husband had chicken pad thai and said it was really good. So 3 out of 4 people enjoyed their meals. For appetizers, we shared chicken and shrimp dumplings, and shrimp rolls. While they looked beautiful and scrumptious, we didn't like the dumplings; didn't taste any shrimp. Kind of just tasted like mush inside dough (looks like dark minced mush in the picture), but we were expecting to actually be able to see chicken and shrimp inside the dumplings. On the other hand, while the shrimp rolls also weren't what we expected, they were good, especially dipped in the sauce that came with them. As you can see in the pictures, they're just wrapped in rice paper. We were expecting something that looked like an egg roll, but have shrimp and veggies inside. I would try this restaurant again, but get shrimp massaman...

A young staff who took our order was very kind and welcoming. The food was good and well seasoned, especially their Tom Yum soup. The Thai iced tea was not too sweet and tastes just right, in my opinion.

HOWEVER, When checking out, I put cash on the counter table, and I was going to recount the amount before handing it to this lady who helped us check out. Before I could reach and recount my cash, the lady took the bill AND the cash and placed on the lower surface where I couldn’t reach it. I told her that I’d like to recount my cash, and she shouldn’t have taken my cash away when I haven’t handed it to her and that I don’t appreciate that action. She didn’t give me the cash back but gave me an attitude instead. THEN she pointed to the change she gave me and ask how much I would like to tip. I hope my tips went to the young staff that helped take us in and take our order, definitely not the lady who cashed me out.

I’ve had meals at Mashumen right next door, multiple times too, and I love the food and the amazing staffs. I heard they and Silk Thai have the same owner, so I decided to try this place out. Although the Thai food is good, I will NOT return after the behavior of the cashier lady today. I have the right to recount my money before I hand it to you, only then you have the right to place it at a place where I can’t reach. It’s sad that the unprofessionalism at the end ruined the experience of a good meal. I hope this will...