Erawan Thai — Restaurant in Columbus

I dont understand why this place is not packed all the time. My daughter and I found this place on the internet and thought we would try. It is small family owned restaurant. It looks like it was decorated 30 years ago but I dont go to a restaurant for the decor. Decor is nice but its more about the food and service. We were there on a Sunday afternoon, and were the only Caucasian ( aka hillbilly) people in there, but we felt right at home. Service was top shelf. One neat thing they have on their menu is a rating system of 1-4 on how spicy their food is. * Coward * Careful *Adventures *** Native Thai. I love spice food so I went straight to 3 stars. My daughter was in the "Coward" spice range. As you can see in the photo Tom Kha soup looked and tasted wonderful. It took a wile to get the soup but it was freshly prepaired and was worth the wait. The small portion could almost be a meal in itself. The broth was to die for, they use galangal root pieces ( kinda like ginger root) in the soup which I am not a big fan of, they give the soup flavor. I simply picked them out. Nice chunks of chicken, mushrooms, scallions and onion. It was wonderful, a large bowl could easily be a meal. Both My daughter and I ordered chicken fried rice, mine spicy. Look at the photos, its as good as it looks. Many times you order rice and it is poorly cooked, not hear somewhat fluffy and just sticky enough. It has the nutty flavor that brown rice should have, When I think of good fried rice this is what I think of. My daughters fried rice also hit the spot. She dident think it was the best she ever had, but it was close to being the best. The food did take a little wile to arrive at out table, but it was well worth the wait. I saw the table across from us ordered Vietnamese Soup it looked so good. I will have to try it on another trip. I...

This is another one of those hidden gems I suppose because it's down in the middle of nowhere off of Refugee Road. It sits in a little shopping area called McThai for some reason. The menu was a bit surprising. They actually had real Thai Vietnamese and Chinese dishes. They had bun thit nun! Nobody has that that I found. I probably should have ordered it but I got confused there were so many choices and I wanted to try the Thai food for sure. Maybe Vietnamese next time they even have pho soups! I ordered a bowl of tom ga and it was excellent. Loaded with nice fresh mushrooms big pieces of fish scallions just enough pepper and a nice creamy broth. I ordered a Thai style pork with Thai broccoli and the pork turned out to be something like back bacon and not your usual slices of mystery meat. A nice fatty crust and two layers of fleshy meat cut in cubes so it looks like a layer cake each piece. Actually not too bad at all. Should have ordered it slightly spicier I asked for medium and it was well below the spice threshold for heat. I don't know why they call it broccoli it's more like nice slices of stem cooked just right and leafy parts that more resembled bok choy or spinach. A nice bowl of done properly rice, how many people do Rice properly these days? Ordered a Thai iced tea and even that was correct which is really surprising in Columbus. Only Thai Town in LA or the Thai Beach at Topanga and the Malibu border on Pacific Coast Highway matched this. You get spoiled in places like Los Angeles or New York or overseas where they do food right. This place is worth the drive down to that part of town. When I go back I'm doing the...

When i first walked in a small headed man with a soft,moist voice asked me if I was picking up. I said I wanted to dine in. He mumbled sit wherever I want which was a red flag I shouldn't have ignored as I interpreted his body language as negative. I ordered hot and spicy wings for the appetizer which were abnormally large and very tough and chewy. The sauce and presentation looked nice but the flavor was "thin" and bland aside from the garlic. Cashew chicken was my entrée and the portion size was expected but also lacked flavor. The best part was the pineapple that I picked out. As I sat there during my meal I paid attention to how the rest of the customers were greeted. Each and every one was asked if they were picking up,OR eating in. The waitress who took my order never checked on me once, amd left me sitting after I was finished for 20 minutes and never returned to check on me. The small headed man finally brought my receipt from my tab and without asking or saying up front self tipped 18% tip. When I asked about it he kept repeating that he already did the tip. As I realized that he was repeating himself and was not trying to understand that self tipping 18% for a 1 customer bill isn't acceptable especially with terrible customer service I wished him luck and left. Full disclosure I had on a collared shirt and my outfit was business casual. Im 51 and treated both of these individuals with kindness and respect as soon as I entered the door. My review is an honest description of my experience and I will...