Thai Cafe — Restaurant in Jackson

This place came recommended highly by an acquaintance. I truly was excitedly about trying this restaurant based in this referral. My wife and I arrived this past Saturday at around 11:30 am, shortly after they opened. I was told the Steak Warbur was incredible and probably the best thing I'd ever eaten. We were very excited about trying this place and really wanted to like it. I'm sorry to say, it was an extremely disappointing experience. When I googled Thai Cafe I Jackson, the price of the Steak Warbur was 18.99. When we got there, the menu we were given showed it as $24.99. That's quite a difference, but it came so highly recommended, I ordered it anyway. My wife ordered their famous Chicken Bowl, which was $15.99, also more than the online price. My wife attempted to use their restroom, before ordering, but wasn't able to because , as the manager had to go ahead of her and admonish an employee or employees "You know you can't do that in here"!. Not sure what was going on, but she was finally able to use the restroom. When she returned, I went to the Men's room and it was nt very clean, and had no paper towels to dry my hands. I had to use toilet paper.. finally our meal came and the "famous" chicken bowl was ok....nothing worth being famous. Cubed pieces of chicken breast over a bed of tasteless rice. At least it was edible. My $24.95 Steak Warbur came out and looked pretty good....it looked like there was a lot of sliced steak on a bed of rice and vegetables. It was covered with a somewhat glazed brown sauce. Honestly, it looked really appetizing, and I was eager to dig in........What a colossal disappointment! The steak, was tough, hard to chew and not nearly as plentiful as it appeared. There were a few vegetables underneath, however, not much. There was rice, but again, bland and no flavor. After just a couple attempts, we realized, this place was not what we had hoped. We finally just asked for to go containers. We drank water, and our bill for this very disappointing meal was almost $60.00, with a tip( which frankly, I'm not sure why I even gave one.) Nobody checked on us till I was completely out of water and it was obvious we couldn't finish this poor excuse for a meal. We got takeout containers, and that night, I added some pineapple and sautéed onions to my wife's chicken bowl, and it was edible. My $24.99 steak Warbur was a different story. There was so much sauce, that I literally had to rinse it off.. once I got rid of most of the sauce, there was very little meat, and almost no vegetables. I tried again to eat the leftovers, but could not. I don't normally, bash someplace we eat, thinking that maybe, they just had a bad day, but...ThaiCafe, charges very high, misleading prices ( remember, their real prices are much higher than their online, advertised prices). And, the food, was really terrible. I don't want anyone else to experience eating there without...

I wish that I could say that I had fantastic experience like I normally have. A friend introduced me to this restaurant ant it was unlike any other little "hidden gem" restaurant you find. It actually managed to stick around! Imagine my surprise years later when I come back and it's still in business! This place has the staying power to persevere how ephemeral ethnic cuisine restaurants are. I was so excited that this would be the place to go for Thai cuisine.

And then I decided to come and try and introduce some friends from out of town to this hidden gem I'd found. The "host/server/manager" was incredibly rude when he let us know he didn't place the order we'd made and had us re-place it with him at that moment. After his rude behavior, he advised us to "make ourselves at home," at which point we went to wait outside of the packed restaurant for the time that he'd advised when we made the initial order.

Apparently, he didn't understand that he gave us ZERO instruction, and thought that we left. So, logically, he cancelled our order - WHILE WE WE WAITING IN THE PARKING LOT.

This is a fantastic place to get Thai cuisine, but whoever it is that they have running the "host/server/manager" spot needs to really re-evaluate what they're doing. In their job, in life, just....in general. They're not hitting any kind of appreciable metrics, and their combativeness with customers when they were incapable to provide literally the bare minimum is appalling.

Hopefully you'll be able to make a correction to reform your business to its former glory, but I'll never be going back and will actively recommend everyone I know to stay away until this egregious oversight...

I cannot believe the positive reviews for this restaurant. I fully agree with Piyush Pandey's review. This was the worst Thai restaurant I have ever eaten at and I can only assume that the other reviewers have had limited, or no experience, with Thai food. The food was tasteless --- no seasonings or rich flavors that one normally expects with Thai cooking. The food I ordered --- a simple Thai fried rice, had a burnt taste because, it seemed, the cook used dry seasonings in a hot wok. Chili powder is pretty much a no-no -- stick to the good stuff. The chicken and beef were dry and overcooked. The green curry was tasteless, and my companion had to essentially take the meal home and add salt and pepper. The rice wasn't jasmine rice. The Thai iced tea was so sweet that after two sips, my companion had to set it aside. It was so sweet it almost tasted metallic. We mentioned our concerns to the waitress (who was very friendly as others have mentioned) and her responses were: "Well, every chef has their own style." (Being able to cook would be a good style to adopt) and "yes, her Thai tea is very sweet; I can't drink it myself, it's too sweet for me." (Hmm, is that all you're going to say? No embarrasment about a table where the drink was left untouched and the food hardly eaten? This is as good as the customer service gets? Friendly but unhelpful?). And don't bother with the satay unless you want to dip it in a watery peanut sauce and seriously exercise your jaw. The food portions are generous but that amounted to a generous portion of poorly...