Khao Kang Thai Kitchen — Restaurant in Mountain View

Flavor is the most authentic in this area, but meat quality is a zero for me every time. Also, we do get stomach aches afterwards, so after three tries, we will go back to making our own Thai food with Thai basil etc. from the farmers market for now. However, if you are in the neighborhood, not too picky, like spice, we do recommend them over Shana Thai (usually, not always, has better meat quality but extremely sweet) for flavor . We gave it three tries, do not recommend to-go. Packaging was leaky and crispy pork smelled piggy, had a warmed over flavor and could not eat. Flavor was spot on, and spice level was great (what you would get in Thailand). We chalked it up to COVID and tried dine-in twice. Both times, the pork has been piggy again. Crispy pork tends to be hard, crunchy (like poorly fried chicharon) and has that warmed over flavor and strong odor. So we tried minced pork (less piggy) and that came with huge pieces of pure fat chunks and gristle. Flavor is always good, although stingy on the basil, so I ate around the meat and fat chunks. Fish cakes are very oily, wish they would blot them. Smelled very fishy one time but also fragrant with Kaffir lime leaves, 2nd time no fishy odor but also zero fragrance and taste. Sauce served with is just a very sweet syrup with a thick coat of crushed peanuts. Spice levels are inconsistent, (it is a very arbitrary system but if you run a restaurant you need to figure out some consistency) with 'mild' being spicy one time and zero spicy another time. 'medium' being incredibly spicy one time and mildly spicy another time. Not a big deal but we have had some communication problems. First dine-in one of us received the wrong order, instead of crispy pork he got long strips of stir fried pork loin. (We had both ordered the same dish, pad ka pow w. crispy pork) We inquired and were told it was pad Ka pow w. ground pork, and we let them know we were ok with eating it as is, but we didn't appreciate their attitude which was accusing us of making a mistake in ordering. Funny, this time we ordered 'ground' and expected the long strips bc of what happened last time, but it came out more ground, definitely pieces weren't long strips like we got last time. (Although lots of longish strips of pure fat) Minor notes, papaya salad has been pretty fresh, comes with a half cup or so of peanuts, whole and not crushed so at least you can eat around it if you forget to ask no peanuts. Kitchen prep is poor with gigantic chunks of untrimmed bell pepper and sliced onion with stems mixed in, etc. Orange slice with fish cakes was dry and unappetizing, even for garnish. Regarding the meat we arent just picking on this one place, in general we have had bad experiences in the peninsula with meat quality being poor, whether it's chicken karaage at a fancy Japanese sushi place, Korean bbq stir fry, the famous Chef Chu's, Vietnamese, or Thai. (We generally have to buy meat and grind it ourselves when we cook with ground or minced meat due to bad experiences in the peninsula with unfresh smelly sour meat, gristle, bone shards, fat and skin in chorizo,...

The restaurant does have unique Thai street food options. I did not try them due to dietary restrictions. One of their signature dishes I did try is the fish curry cooked in wrapped banana leaf. It was good but not excellent. I have tried this dish in Thailand. My comparison maybe a bit unfair. It is a much milder version of what I have eaten. I feel they could have added more curry paste and spiced it up a bit more. The restaurant staff are very kind. It is a good place to bring family and friends. There is parking around. I had the Thai papaya salad. It was standard papaya salad. I have had much better in other restaurants in bay areas. They use French beans I would recommend them to use Chinese long beans. They use large tomatoes I would recommend using small cut cherry tomatoes that will look nicer and easier to eat. Also have options to put dried shrimp. Also out a tiny bit of tamarind water. Papaya salad has to be sour spicy salty and sweet at the same time. The Thai fish cakes was also good but not great. Again more on the bland side. Kafir lime leaf and red curry paste flavor should stand out. It was very mild. The quality of ingredients is very good. The execution of dishes can be more authentic. I would rate this place more like 3.75 for the food but due to it's staff and good ambience for family get together will round it up to 4. I will come back to try the chef's seafood specials in...

Just got out of this restaurant super dissatisfied, and without food. Felt discriminated and upset as we don’t experience this at any place we go to. They sat us down when the restaurant was empty with literally only 4 military personnel’s already finishing up their food. We placed our order (simple- 1 coke, 1 Thai iced tea, 1 basil chicken with rice and 1 fried rice). Had hungry kids and limited time as we were making a lunch stop due to soccer tournament in the area. The server gets us the drinks, and other customers started filling up the place, however nothing too crazy for lunch time, 10-15 mins go by and we are watching others get served their appetizers and drinks and we are still cool…we sit there and waited for 45 mins and folks that came behind us got their food, almost finishing up. I finally lose patience and nudge the server who says “he is still working on it”. She goes inside without checking as she is still in my view, instead serves some other incoming customers and takeaways. Finally I went in to tell her we need to leave and let me pay for the coke and iced tea. She tells me sorry with her body language telling another story and needs to recall the order another 5 mins process. Comes to the table unapologetically arguing now with us at the table. Didn’t even bother to say sorry or have any courtesy to compensate for the mishap....