LumThai — Restaurant in Gaithersburg

Summary: Hurried and unwelcome.

We received a promotional menu with a discount coupon in the mail and was excited to try out a new Thai restaurant near our house since Thai is one of our favorite cuisines.

Service (1.5/5) : It states that they close at 9pm on Friday so our friend called around 8:20pm to see if our party of 6 could still be seated. They said we could stay until 9:30pm. Great! Or so we thought....they failed to state that your party would feel rushed and unwelcome the entire time, so you might as well go elsewhere if it's anywhere near their closing. As the last dish for our party was served, they immediately handed us the checks to sign and hounded us to sign it over and over again. She literally stopped our conversation in order to get us to sign the checks. Not sure why they did this as we wouldn't have been able to leave since our food was just served. This was at 9pm, what happened to the 9:30pm that was stated earlier? If you didn't want to serve us, you could have told us on the phone before all of us drove in. I get that we came in as they were closing but that's why we called to ask ahead of time.

Food (3.5/5): Joyce got the beef pad see ew and I got the beef street noodles. The portions were decently sized, albeit smaller than the other Thai restaurants in the area. All our dishes came out with a spiralized carrot which looked fancy but was unnecessary. Her pad see ew tasted pretty standard. Her friend that got the same dish stated that it was more sweet than other places. My street noodles tasted kind of like a drunken noodle dish but spiced with sambal. I would give you more details about the food but I felt like I needed to scarf it down since the staff were breathing down our necks.

Ambiance (3/5): Unremarkable with wooden chairs & tables, their LED sign is cool.

Overall, we were looking forward to Lum Thai, but was highly disappointed by the lack of hospitality. There are too many other similar options in the area with bigger portions and similar price point...

Been to a lot of Thai places in the area and this is now my favorite. There are a couple closer to my home within walking distance, and are very good but LumThai is that much better. I ordered the crispy duck ka prao. It's something you don't always find and the only other time I remember having it at a Thai restaurant was in New York. My wife got the drunken noodles and that was very good as well. She also really liked the crispy eggrolls and I got the Tom Yum soup for an app and was pleased with it. It's a simple dish, and some places make it a bit too salty or not flavorful enough. Will definitely be back for more crispy duck and maybe try a new app...with more Tom...

The area is increasing of high quality Thai cuisine and this is one of them. We ordered quite quite few dishes including Pad Thai, Crispy Duck Ka Prao, Tom Kha, and a couple appetizers to share.

The Pad Thai wasn’t too sweet like a lot of Thai places. The duck was crispy, not too much fat. The Tom Kha wasn’t too heavy on the coconut cream taste which most Thai places are. Best of all, the food came in good proportions. The menu is small but seems like all the dishes are well curated. Very unique plating too, not too much with an authentic impact.

The atmosphere is good for dates or just casual dinner (although they don’t have alcohol currently - that may change...