Pakpao Thai — Restaurant in Dallas

Quite possible one of the worst dining experiences I have ever had. Nothing seemed to go right for our table. First, nothing we ordered seemed to come out. A couple of girls ordered cucumber basil drinks with vodka but the waitress only heard one. When they tried it, it didn't even taste like any alcohol was added. I'm a very light drinker and can usually detect minute amounts of liquor and even I couldn't taste any. I guess it's possible the cucumber or something else just covered the vodka. One girl ordered a beer and never received that but it somehow still made it on her ticket along with the tea that she canceled for the beer. When it came time to order, a couple of girls almost didn't even get to order because the waitress thought she already took their order. Then after that, they ended up getting their meals after the rest of the party was done eating. When they asked about it, they were told that the food would be out in 2 seconds. It took about a good 5 minutes before their food came. The manager brought their dishes and the girls had complained that they were probably the hangriest out of the group. The manager let them know that the night was busy and sometimes the dishes take longer and they stand by their food. It was scallops and a waterfall salad - neither are crazy time consuming dishes to cook! And the waterfall salad said it was made with wagyu beef. They need a refund from where ever they ordered it because it was way too tough to be called wagyu. One girl ordered sticky rice and papaya salad. The sticky rice was WAY over microwaved. The middle was really sticky and hard. They really should have seen that they had reheated it too long and warmed up another batch of sticky rice. Papaya salad is typically a delicious combination of spicy, sour and sweet. The papaya salad we received was just sour. We asked for additional ingredients (fish sauce, sugar, salt, etc.) to try to fix it and whatever she brought tasted like it was just extra dressing instead of what we requested. We all tried to help fix it but it was just a lost cause. It was just really sour and just terrible. Perhaps our expectations were just too high after we had awesome papaya salad at a different restaurant the day before.

At the end of the meal we were told there would be a $15 charge to serve the birthday cake we brought in. I wasn't aware that we were at a fine dining establishment that offered in house desserts! We were so annoyed at this point that we agreed to just do the cake elsewhere. They tried to compensate by saying they would waive the fee since there was such a long wait for dinner. We said it was fine because we just wanted to leave.

The tickets at the end of dinner were also a mess. At the beginning of the dinner, the waitress asked how we would be doing tickets and we asked to have separate tickets. After hearing that you would think she would know to pay attention to what each person ordered. Almost everything was wrong. Her excuse was that "everyone" moved around and she couldn't keep track. ONE person moved from one end of the table to the other end because they were sharing food (same people that got their food after everyone else was done.)

Another issue was the restroom. The manager directed one of the girls to the restroom and when she came out and told some of the employees that the toilet was clogged and they said they were already aware. Fortunately after that someone went to fix it, but seriously if you already knew it was an issue do something about it! Who wants to walk in and see a flooded toilet??

However, I should include that not everything was bad. The hot and spicy chicken wings were probably the best thing we tried. The pad kee mao was also decent. Overall, the food and service were just awful. Such a huge waste of...

Ordered to-go, not worth it at all. My first and last time. I took my Mom on a weeknight around 7:30 pm to grab a to-go order from them because it was a great location, and was really cute inside. We walked in, unsure of where to go to order for takeout. The place was empty other than a couple tables, and there was a good amount of wait staff just hanging around. No one greeted us, or would even glance our way to ask how they could help. It was like they didn't even want us there as soon as we walked in, which we thought was very odd. We walked to the bar where we were the only people, and the bartender was strangely aggressive? My Mom is older, and she'd ask her a question about a dish, and it was as if we were just annoying her and wasting her time asking very simple questions, like "Does this come with rice?". She'd respond with just a rude yes or no. We asked if we could add pineapple and cashews to the fried rice, and she kept just saying really rudely, "Well that'll be an extra $10." (Who charges $6 for pineapple...) We could tell we just needed to get our of her hair, so we'd just say we know that's fine and ended up ordering a fried rice and a honey chicken dish. Two dishes for takeout ended up costing $45, but we figured it was probably really good so it was worth it. We get home... there is a total of MAYBE 4 cashews, and 5 small pieces of this super tough and hard pineapple that we paid $10 for. When we opened the chicken dish that cost probably $15, there was barely ANY chicken and mostly just spinach. The small amount of chicken had no flavor, and the fried rice was just so mediocre! I hate to write this but it's overpriced, rude staff, and bland food. Not sure if it was just a bad night to go in, but the food was so poor I'd...

Saw the great reviews and thought I would try this place with my family of 5. Bill came out to about $110, and food took about 20 minutes to come out. No problems there. The problems began when I asked for 4 water bottles and one worker tried to charge me for them. I had ordered 3 drunken noodles dishes and 2 curry dishes priced at $16 and $14 each. I made the mistake of assuming they came with drinks, but the employee let me know they didn’t. Red flag number 1. Another employee was only able to find 2 water bottles for me, and offered me the bottles free of charge. Red flag number 1 reversed. I don’t mind paying, but at these prices there should be a drink offered IMO. Employees start packing the bag with these deep containers and I start feeling like maybe it will worth it. Employee hands me a very large brown bag, and I brace myself expecting it to weigh a ton. Light as a feather. Red flag number two. We get home and l lay out the contents of the bag on the table. Those big containers were all half full unfortunately. Portions were extremely small and curry did not even come with rice (came with a few pieces of rotti bread instead). We got to eating the food and it was good, but I felt like they prepared this meal for a gerbil. Food was done in about 5 minutes.

We made a call to to offer CONSTRUCTIVE feedback, and the manager offered a free desert or appetizer for our next visit.

Bottom line: Employees were polite, food was good, but the small portions stole the show and I had to buy dinner for...