Lotus Thai Cuisine — Restaurant in Guttenberg

I desperately want to give this place 5 stars, and I'm hoping the restaurant owner/manager reads to reviews to help them get this extra star. After searching extensively for a good Thai place in North Bergen, we settled for this place because the reviews seems consistently fantastic for all foods except noodle dishes. This becomes relevant later.

We were welcomed warmly and sat at the bar to order our food for takeout. The place is small and charming, yet feels also upscale with the ambiance. It's immaculately clean inside, and I do love the ambiance. We ordered the following: papaya salad and beef salad for appetizers. Chicken drunken noodles with extra tofu, beef basil dish, chicken basil dish, and chicken green curry. Our love for spicy was met when we ordered these at level 5 spiciness. The spicy levels are legit, so order according to your tolerance of enjoyment!

The papaya and beef salads didn't disappoint. The vegetables and fruit were fresh and crispy and the seasoning oh-so-tasty. I have been to other places that put a bit more beef in the salad than Lotus, but it was ok here.

The chicken green curry was absolutely phenomenal. The richness of the sauce is a perfect balance of flavor profiles. The only downside is I wish they had put more stuff in the dish. Seemed a wee bit skimped on the meat/veggies.

The basil dishes were both very tasty, but it was different from what we were expecting. There wasn't a lot of basil in it, which is the signature taste of this spicy dish. Also, broccoli? We've never seen in added to this dish before, and since we're likely to come back, we'll be sure to ask them to omit this and keep it traditional Thai style.

Lastly, I'll comment on the drunken noodles. This is one of my all-time favorite Thai dishes, and I was super excited to try it at Lotus. Mega disappointed. Everything in the dish was great except the noodles! They were... Bland? A bit dry? Almost like they were thrown in the dish last minute and mixed. They lacked the deliciousness of a seasoned wok like Thai noodles are supposed to have. I now understand why the reviews on the pad thai dishes are less than stellar. I want to try it again, but I'm hoping Lotus Thai staff will read this and do something about their noodles! I'm definitely looking forward to coming back and trying other dishes, but I want this place to make EVERY...

Overall, it was a nice. We ordered a delivery and were told it would get here in 45-60 minutes, it got here within about 35 minutes which was a nice surprise. We had the vegetable mazman curry, the sauces flavor was very good but it was just a bit thin. The carrots were a big weirdly cut and the veggies had a bit of an inconsistent shape however they were all nicely cooked, not over and not under. This curry came with plain basmati rice, which we were unaware about so we ordered some brown rice. Both of which were a bit starchy, but were still good. We got a tofu pad Thai, that tasted quite traditional in my opinion. It had a good balance of sweetness and acidity but sadly not quite enough saltiness for pad Thai. I thought the noodles had a slightly porky taste, so they may have used the same wok they used to cook pork in, which I hope is not the case because I am a vegetarian. One thing about it that was untraditional was the fact that, on top, there was shredded white and purple cabbage instead of bean sprouts. How ever there was ground peanuts and a wedge of lime on top which is traditional. Finally we had the Chinese chive dumplings that came with a nice dipping sauce. There were four streamed and lightly pan fried dumplings. The filling tasted nice and the so did the wrapper, but it was just a bit too greasy and squashed by the time they arrived, which is to be expected I guess. All in all it was nice and we all enjoyed it. I do think that the prices were quite high for what it was, even tho the portions...

This place was recommended to me by a Spanish friend who said it was the "best thai restaurant". They both have an indoor and an outdoor backyard setting with great EDM music.

I took my family here for mother's day and I'm not sure why it has 4.2 stars? As an asian, this is an embarrassment and thai food DO NOT taste like this.

Pad Thai, is supposed to be sweet, sour, salty, and peanuty but this pad thai tasted like it has ketchup or food coloring in it.

the Duck Basil and Pork Basil tasted the same as their sauteed mixed vegetables, like they have only 1 recipe for the sauteed dishes.

Papaya salad and Mango salad was confusing as hell. To me it tasted like pickled papaya and just put mango on top to make it a mango salad. At least the calamari was decent.

Let me not forget to mention that the waiter never wrote our orders but memorized it instead, and FORGOT to put in the Fried Fish that we ordered. We ended up waiting for 20 minutes after we finished eating everything to find out the main dish was not coming. They also ran out of Red Snapper and only have Seabass. But it never came!

You would know if its authentic thai if the cook/chef/waiters working are thai. Most of them are Spanish. Asians have a different palate.

Overall, if you're looking for authentic thai food? Do not come to this place. But if you're just looking for good music and a backyard party vibe place without minding the food, then go for it.

Parking is hard to find with paid street parking...