Thai Flavors Ingersoll — Restaurant in Des Moines

Thai flavors Ingersoll avenue

Des Moines has just expanded so much and it's offerings of food. I think Liam Anivat is the major owner and I remember his food at Thai flavors on East 14th Street long ago. He has become quite a entrepreneur of Thai restaurants he is the major owner of Cool Basil and Clive and banana leaf. He is really worked hard to have very large restaurants that serve delicious Thai food. We had a group of 30 for lunch for a birthday partyand they were very accommodating.

It's conveniently located along Ingersoll with limited parking in the front and some parking on the side and a large amount of parking in the rear. It can be a busy place so depending on the time of day lunch or dinner you may have to walk a little from your parking spot to the restaurant. The restaurant is clean modern and as an extensive Bar menu. It is similar menu items to his other restaurants. On this particular day I had the ginger beef and some taste of Hawaiian fried rice. Both were excellent. I always like to support a locally owned business. Liam has developed quite a system and serving large amount of people at all his restaurants although the East 14th restaurants still has that old mom and pop kind of feel. When he first opened his first restaurant there were not that many Thai restaurants around town. Now he's open many himself and there are other many quality Thai food restaurants around town I think all of his restaurants have some healthier menu including fresh vegetable dishes. I believe they all have vegan dishes as well. Of course the restaurant has pot stickers basil stir fry, pad thai, and other traditional Thai restaurant dishes. There is lots of variety in the menu including traditional sushi dishes and bento boxes It's also about expectations, everyone is under staffed, so I always appreciate the service staff who are working. Having said that the service was fast and efficient . It's also about being realistic about the food. Although we had one server for our group all the other servers pitched in to make sure the food was served quick and hot. There are lots of lunch specials as well smaller size dishes of traditional Thai food there's about 10 different kinds. I would definitely check this place out. If you're in the area it's well...

This location has been open long enough to overcome the issues they had when they first opened, yet they have failed to do so.

The experience here is so inconsistent that you really can’t depend on any one part of it being good from one visit to the next. Food is on point once, then completely off the next time. Service is stellar once, then horrid the next visit.

The food is hit or miss, definitely leaning more towards miss though. Bland, lacking flavor, undisclosed (on the menu) ingredients that change the flavor profile of dishes, food that should be hot arriving cold, inconsistent spice levels, and gristly/tough poorly trimmed meat.

Service is lackluster. While servers seem friendly at the start, that quickly changes, on a whim. Servers are poorly trained and consistently struggle to use their portable ordering devices. Servers are not knowledgeable about their menu offerings, both cocktails/drinks, and food.

Speed of service is nonexistent. My party of four waited more than 20 minutes for our first round of drinks, 2 simple vodka cocktails that take less than a minute each to pour, and 2 signature cocktails that take slightly longer. Our drinks arrived watery and lacking flavor, likely due to having sat so long that the ice completely melted in a couple of them. Food took even longer, and was mediocre.

If you’re going to visit Thai Flavors, go to the E14th and University location. They know how to do things right there, and take great care of...

I would first like to say that our waitress was very sweet, I didn't get her name. However, our experience was heavily affected by the food we received. We found 2 hairs and a fingernail in one of the dishes we ordered. The manager on shift even grabbed my daughters hand when shown the hair in my daughters hand, shook her hand to knock the hair out of her hand and said "nobody needs to see that". This same manager then asked if we wanted a menu to order something different, and 10 seconds after receiving the menu she then asked us if we wanted boxes. It was not only physically invasive to my daughter to touch her, but then to essentially ask us if we are done after someone was looking at the menu to order something different is extremely unprofessional. We decided ultimately to not finish any of the 5 dishes, nor order a replacement. We made sure the waitress knew it wasn't her fault, as it wasn't made aware to her the issue that had occurred at her table. I have worked food Service for 15 years, managing food service locations, certified for national level food safety and I would never touch one of my customers, especially as this "manager" did. We paid for 4 dishes that we didn't eat so we could tip the waitress. We will never be visiting this establishment again, and it was my first time visiting to begin with. I will make sure not to...