Nai Thai Cuisine — Restaurant in Dunwoody

TLDR: Way overpriced food and drinks. Best suited for an earlier dinner or lunch. Atmosphere is less for friends and family and more for a business/professional occasion.

Arrived at 9pm on a Monday with a party of two. The restaurant was empty except for a 4 top finishing their entrées. Decent amount of to-go and 3rd party delivery going on.

Service: We were seated quickly and given menus. The guy working as host/bartender/waiter seemed very nice and was pleasant. We received our drinks soon after ordering and our app/ent was taken probably 8-10 minutes after.

Our appetizers came out very quickly. The entrée was brought out wayyyyy too early and was cold by the time we finished our apps. Despite the waiter assuring us that there was no hurry, it seemed like there was a rush to close exactly at 10pm. The waiter repeatedly announced that the kitchen was closing and only seemed to slow down a bit when his friends (or regulars, he knew them by name) were sat at the bar 25 minutes from close.

At the end of our meal another employee brought the check. We were taxed separately for alcohol, which might be common in this area I’m not sure. We asked for a to go box and received a broken one (one of the corners was punctured/impacted).

Food: We ordered the edamame (only available with salt, no garlic option), Tom kha gai, po-tak, larb, and catfish panang. The edamame was pretty standard. I personally wish there were flavor options like garlic available. The soups were honestly the highlight of the meal flavor-wise. Not a lot of seafood in the po-tak despite the larger portion relative to the Tom kha gai. No spice whatsoever, even though the menu says they are ‘mild’. The larb was okay, again no spice despite being level one here. Asked for some chili oil and all they had was sambal. The larb portion was small for the price, the red onions were poorly cut, and they garnished with crinkle cut raw sweet potato (lmao what’s the CDC smoking???). The chicken, however, was not dry or gritty - honestly hard to find in this area.

The only true let down was the catfish panang. It came out so early that it was cold - which was extra upsetting because the catfish was fried (I expected a regular fish curry but the catfish was a separate component). I kind of scratched my head looking at the plate.

Let’s break it down: A panang curry on the back of the menu is $17.50. The catfish panang curry is $24. The only difference I could see was 4 small pieces (2 split filets) of catfish. Incredible move by the owners, terrible value for customers. To make matters worse the curry was awful. I’ve eaten panang curry at home and dozens of times dining out. I’ve never had such a sweet, runny, and dry? (barely any actual curry on the plate) panang. Based on the cook of the veg, the separation of the protein, and the consistency of the sauce I would say they’re using a jar curry paste, diluting it with more water than coconut milk, and cooking to order super fast and hot with little reduction. The flavor wasn’t there and it killed my appetite for any sort of dessert. I’m surprised they had the balls to label it as medium. I’m not usually a Thai spicy person, but I’m honestly curious to see what they think Thai spicy is.

Atmosphere: Very sterile. Everything was very clean. The music was elevator jazz and there were two tvs with some sports on. It was comfortable in the way a doctor’s waiting room or museum lobby is. You couldn’t smell any food. The metallic decor and the mirror made even the natural...

Disappointing, we came for dinner last month. Food was ok nothing special about it but what disappoint us the most is the service. Our server was not attentive at all, my husband ordered a beer which was on the menu and my son had a soda, server came back saying the beer was not available so he had to order another type of beer and server came back with the soda and the beer husband. We told the server to get us a straw for my child’s soda but then he came back again brought the plates and cutlery WITHOUT THE STRAW so we had to remind him again. When we asked for the bill the server DID NOT VOID the first beer that was not available, this kind of small issues can be overlooked on your end if you do not double check your bill before you pay. I mean how can you be not so attentive, looking around the restaurant was not even full and clearly some tables in the restaurant food has already been served and some people were just waiting to leave because the rain was pouring so heavy outside. There were few people outside but no one came to assist them too. 3 of them had to carry their own food back inside the restaurant and look for an empty table for them to sat down and sometimes be had to go back outside to take their drinks. We worked in restaurants decades in hospitality so I know how it feels if it’s busy but clearly the servers was not paying attention to their customers at all, no sense of urgency to our needs and others and can’t accommodate even the basic stuffs. It might not be on my business to be concerned of the other customers experience but what I saw and go through it was awful coz it clearly shows that you all do not care of...

USE FOR TAKEOUT. Nai Thai is a reasonable neighborhood Thai restaurant but beware of a couple of things. First, on Saturday evenings in the summer their neighbor tavern/barbecue joint has live music in the adjacent outside area. It is very loud and not very high quality. The customers at that establishment seem to like it so I understand why they have it but it is hard to have a conversation over the music which is aided at the Nai Thai outdoor area. The performer had admirable endurance working without a break for the entire time we were at Nai Thai. The other problem is that our main courses came to our table less than 5 minutes after the appetizers were served. We sent them back. When they were served after we completed our appetizers it was clear that the staff had made no effort to keep them hot or to replace the originals. In essence we were eating leftovers of the food we had ordered. The food was tasty but at best lukewarm. We should have sent the food back but by that time we were so tired of the bad music that we decided to eat and move on. There is not excuse for a restaurant to serve cold food and difficulty timing entrees after appetizers is the sign of restaurant with poor management and kitchen oversite. So, the bottom line is that if you want to eat outside on a weekend night, get take out from Nai Thai and eat in...