Lai Thai Restaurant — Restaurant in Niles Township

Long-Time Customer - Terrible Experience Today; Will NOT Be Coming Back

My family and I ordered the Three Flavor Fish, which, according to the menu, is 'lightly fried till crisped.' However, when it arrived, it was clear that it had been fried for far too long. The waitress gave us a dull dinner knife to cut through the fish. I’m not exaggerating when I say cutting into this fish was like cutting through a thick piece of cardboard with a butter knife. After several minutes of struggling, we finally tasted the fish, and it was extremely tough on the inside and overly crunchy on the outside. It was obvious that the fish had been overcooked and left in the fryer for too long. Having eaten many Red Snapper dishes at various Thai restaurants, this was by far the worst we've had. The high price of $46 only added to our disappointment.

We kindly informed the head waitress that the fish was overcooked and very difficult to eat. Her response was, "Oh ok, sounds good," before she walked away and did not inform the chefs about our issue. We understand that mistakes happen in the restaurant business, but the lack of any visible concern or effort to address our complaint was disheartening. Most restaurants would offer a slight discount or at least inquire if there was something they could do to rectify the situation, especially when the issue concerns their most expensive dish. None of this was offered, and we ended up paying and leaving.

I’ve ordered takeout from this place several times before and never experienced such poor service. I would advise anyone considering Thai food to avoid this restaurant and try 'Chef of Siam Thai' or 'Krua Thai' instead. At least the staff at those places treat you like a...

I ordered the pad kee mao entree and an appetizer of tom yum soup. The tom yum soup came out first, and I was not impressed with the flavor. The taste was off, as it was nothing like tom yum soup I've had at other restaurants. For one, it was way too acidic. It tasted to me like the sourness of the soup was coming from an accidental pouring of too much concentrated white vinegar rather than tomatoes (conspicuously missing from this soup) and a touch of lime juice. Secondly, there was a strong pungent smell of fish sauce added perhaps too late in the cooking process. The flavors were too raw and desperately need a base of coconut milk to balance out the harsher tones. 2/5 for the tom yum soup.

The disappointing soup lowered my expectations for the pad kee mao, but this dish definitely redeemed the meal. It had a wonderful off-the-grill smokiness to it, and had great textures between the tender chicken, chewy noodles, and crunchy vegetables. The noodles themselves were on point, absorbing the sauce well while keeping its chew and not falling apart. It's always a treat for me when I request a spicy dish and the restaurant delivers, and they did indeed bring on a hearty spice with this dish. Lai Thai does their pad kee mao right, and the satisfaction-per-buck...

owner of this place needs to read this . If you think this is false , go in and experience yourself . Your staff is full of attitude and provided horrible service . They treat other races horribly and they think it’s not equivalent to their race or ethnicity . I have been there many times and have continuously noticed their horrible service and attitude toward me and my friends/ family. I always give the benefit of the doubt and move on . I am a frequent customer, it all started when I asked the waiter ( male) to tell me how spicy it will be he started giving me and my friend so much attitude that I had to ask for manager to which he told me manager is there and then entered the kitchen came back in few seconds to tell me the manager is not here ( lied) . I stayed calm then too giving him the benefit of doubt . He comes back to tell, me you can leave , “we don’t want to serve people like you “and then I asked for owner information and the staff at this point refused to give me that and asked me to leave and never come back. If one didn’t do anything wrong then why be hesitant to give the info ? Just because I asked for owner information to complain they asked...