Morningside Thai Restaurant — Restaurant in Houston

So we usually get Doordash delivery or take out from here and it's been a pleasant experience overall.. so this weekend we decided to eat dine in with the kids.

When we arrived, there was nobody in the restaurant (this was around 530pm), and we were told to wait for a table (when every table was available). A couple arrived a few seconds after us and they were basically seated immediately. We finally got a table situated with a high chair.

When we ordered our meal, my wife requested the chili-lime sauce that we frequently get on delivery apps and was told they don't sell that for dine-in and it's an UberEats exclusive (HUH??). They said they would have to charge the UberEats price for the sauce (why can't you guys just say the sauce cost extra..? we would have been okay paying for it). After some back and forth, they came back from the kitchen mentioning that they no longer sell the sauce. The server/host (a youngish guy with glasses) was not very accommodating of my wife's request and insisted that there was no such sauce or it was being axed from the menu (this is completely false as I'll describe later). Okay fine, no sauce... so we go about ordering our food. We weren't super hungry so I ordered a small soup with a thai tea and my wife ordered a soup entre to share with the kids and our friend ordered a curry entre. The server passively aggressively asked if that's all we were ordering when I feel like there was no mention of a minimum order amount and something like a minimum order shouldn't even exist at a restaurant like this. Also, when I asked for less ice, he mentioned the Thai tea would not have the glass full. The server/host was just very combative with every request we made and was a very frustrating experience for everyone. Water was not provided even after the Thai tea was served and we had to re-request the water. Also refills were offered only after we already finished our meal and had empty glasses for the majority of the meal (I had to take water from my kids' cups...).

Unfortunately, our out-of-town friend had offered to pay so I had no control over the tip, but for SURE, we would have probably opted for 10% or even no tip because our experience was so strange and uncomfortable on this particular night with this particular guy. I'm not sure if he just had a bad day or what. We don't appreciate being lied too about the sauce either -- we literally just ordered the sauce along with an entre tonight on DoorDash and RECEIVED THE SAUCE, so please next time don't lie to your customers about a product that 1) you DO have at the restaurant and 2) you should be able to sell to dine-in customers?? I have never heard of a delivery exclusive menu item.....

I've seen what I presume to be the owner or restaurant manager during takeout pickups and presume none of this would have caused an issue if she was there on that particular night.

In terms of food, I think the majority of stuff is quite decent. I would say the curry is a bit watered down to some extent, and the crab fried rice I wish had more flavor / mixed up more as it was more or less just white rice with crab chunks. Their pad thai is pretty good as well as their soups, and I think the Tom Yum is quite good.

It's really hard to reconsider coming back to this restaurant or recommending it as a dine-in option after our experience this past weekend. Previously, we had thought this place was a pretty decent Thai restaurant near us...

This used to be my go to place mainly because I ordered from UberEats. I decided to order online on my way home from work one day and just pick up. I experienced the WORST possible situation ever from this restaurant- the so called‘manager’, Juan, rudely yells at me, gaslighted me into saying they didn’t have an order from me, which I ordered online with my debit card. I showed him order confirmation in email AND the charge on my debit card. He STILL WANTED TO ARGUE WITH ME SAYING THEY DIDNT HAVE IT! When I just suggested that he reenter the order because that would be the solution, he wanted to argue with me and say that I was arguing! All I was doing is making a resolution to the issue! He was rude, abrasive, combative and yelling at the top of lungs at me! I told him he was being emotional and wrong for arguing with me especially since I was simply trying to get to a resolution! 1. I had PAID for my order. 2. I was there to just simply pick up my order SO WHY WAS HE STUCK ON SAYING THEY DIDNT HAVE ORDER! Ok we had established that already is what I told him -was simply trying to move forward to a resolution is what i said AGAIN! At. that point, I had enough of the disrespect, asked for manager- he said he was and then, I asked for owner. He refused to tell me owner name. So, I asked if owner can call me. He called, rolled his eyes at ME, in his feminine,snippy way,refused to put me on phone with owner, lied and said I WAS ARGUING when HE WAS!!! Gaslighting a hundred percent! Then, continued with story of them not having my order that I had clearly showed him a confirmation for it! If your online system takes payments and malfunctions, you should discontinue the service with them! DONT DISRESPECT PATRONS WHO HAVE SUPPORTED YOUR BUSINESS FOR THREE YEARS!!!! Horrible! NEVER AGAIN! Juan should be fired for not knowing how to handle or d escalate issues! I’ve been a customer service manager over 27 years! NEVER HAVE BEEN DISRESPECTED SO MUCH IN MY LIFE!! I will tell everyone I know who likes Thai to not order from you again! I’ve emailed several times but Juan probably has been deleting them from your gmail account!!!

UPDATE- Firstly, I had already mentioned that I showed him the charge going thru on my Chase app…. Secondly, you are not reprimanding or addressing your employee’s lack of respect or ability of de-escalation. This shows tolerance of the behavior to your establishment and disregard for the suggestion of eliminating the problem employee… I appreciate the apology and lastly, it was not ordered through uber eats/third party. It was your failed website and so, I believe you should eliminate the system if it malfunctions. It was the source of...

The food is decent. It's not really any better or worse in that department than Thai Spice in the Village. They only get 2 stars because they can't seem to get an order right anymore. It used to be the same people every time I went in to pick up take-out and I never had any problem but a few months back I guess they quit and it's been different employees every visit.

The past two times I've gone there they've messed up the order. The first time they gave me a completely different dish and insisted it was what I ordered(it was not, they had even read the order back correctly when I ordered). I took it because I didn't want to wait for them to replace it(not that they were offering to). This last trip I told them I wanted brown rice with the order. They told me the price for extra rice and I told them I did not want extra rice. I only wanted to substitute the rice that came with the dish with brown rice. They read the order back just fine. Once I got home I noticed they had put in an extra rice and charged an extra $3 or so.

Parking can be a pain at Thai Spice, but at least you'll get what you ordered. If you have to try Morningside Thai, just make sure to take out every dish and double check the bill while you're there if you're getting take-out.

Update: I've been back several times since then and they haven't messed up the order again. The food is still the same with a few dishes that have been a miss, but they seem to have sorted out their...