US Thai Cafe — Restaurant in Edgewater

In Yelpers, please trust! When a majority of the reviews mention the spice level, please take it seriously! I am a fanatic of Thai Hot, and I too, don't think I could handle the intensity. For those that like a little kick in their food, but not mouth-burning, I'd recommend mild. Medium is pretty hot, and I would fear what Thai hot could do to some of the brave intestines that try it out.

I've been here a couple times now, and I'd recommend the Thai fried rice and the Tom Kha. They both have really good flavors in it. The fried rice is Thai street food-greasy, which is what makes it melt in your mouth good! As for the Tom Kha, it's gotta be one of their best sellers, you can fully taste the galangal and kaffir lime leaves in this soup, it's flavorful.

Now the con, I don't recommend the "Larb (Thai taco meat salad)," it was missing some mint leaves and fish sauce flavor, it was just limey. However, if you do want a salsa-type dish, I'd say go for it. But if you want the authentic taste, I'd skip this dish. In addition to that, I wasn't a fan of the Pad Thai. Now now, many people have different interpretations of Pad Thai. The true Thai version is low on the tamarind sauce and not as saucy, like a Chinese lomein, except using rice noodles. Then there's the Colorado version, where it's sweeter, and saucier. This resembled a Thai spaghetti dish, that's how saucy it was. I do love it all different ways, saucy and no saucy, but the flavor just wasn't there for me on this one. Sorry peeps.

Overall, this is a pretty decent place, kind of on the smaller portion, but I'd visit again for the love of the true spice level, where they roast their chilies to really kick...

I'll start by saying that the food here is great. We've gotten both egg rolls and pad thai here and have not been disappointed with the food itself. The pad thai was flavorful and had a great spice to it. I'd agree with others here that the portions were a good size.

Unfortunately, after a bit of internal debate, I decided to give 3 stars based on our last experience here. As others have noted in their reviews, the wait time for take out is pretty significant -- up to and sometimes over an hour. We called an order in ahead of time a few Fridays ago -- two veggie pad thais and an order of veggie egg rolls and were told this would take take about 70 minutes. When we got there, we checked in and our order was brought to us. Unfortunately, there was a mistake on their end: they only had one pad thai for us.

Instead of apologizing (they never did), the hostess said, "Okay, well we only made one... so, do you still want that?" How awkward! We went back and forth a bit and the options we were given were basically pay for the one pad thai OR order a second one, which would be added to the BACK OF THE LINE and wait for that. We asked them to remake both, so that we could actually have hot food and eat together. I was pretty shocked and disappointed that this went to the back of the line. We waited another 50 minutes for our to-go order -- more than two hours total -- and not only didn't get an apology, but didn't get any sort of discount or anything comped either. I'm not one to make demands and so didn't ask for anything like that, but it was surprisingly poor customer service.

We like the food, but this experience left a bad taste...

One of the only Thai restaurants I’ve been to that will make your food actually hot (spicy). This is the hottest Thai hot I have ever tried. They also have the BEST Tom kha soup I have ever had. Their Pad Thai is excellent and the crab rangoon (although not traditionally Thai) is great here. Here’s a spice scale based on my experience:

No heat: self explanatory

Mild: a hint of heat, only hot to the most sensitive palates. Think pickled jalapeño.

Mild+: nice balanced heat, the right level for most people but some think it’s too hot. Think jalapeno pepper.

Medium: Some places would consider this Thai hot. Think serrano pepper.

Medium+: About what you’d expect Thai hot to be in most American restaurants. Solid heat that builds, overwhelming if you don’t truly like spicy foods. If you usually like Thai hot, definitely start here.

Hot: Lips burning, heat builds to where you probably want to take breaks. Think fresh habaneros. Hotter than Thai hot at 98% of places.

Thai hot: Hurts so good. I estimate 50% hotter than regular hot. Try that first, it’s enough more most people. If you regularly eat habaneros and don’t think they are that hot, give it a try. This is definitely approaching ghost pepper heat.

Phet mak mak (double Thai hot/very very hot): I’m not sure why I did this. I eat insanely hot things regularly and this made my eyes tear up involuntarily. Not reaper hot, but definitely like ghost pepper. I have no idea how they even make it this hot without using ghost peppers or something hotter. It was nearly black with all the ground peppers and seeds...