Isan zaap Thai cafe — Restaurant in Orlando

I am utterly baffled at how this place got recommended by some kind of "Michelin Bib Gourmand" award for multiple years. The food here is not particularly good.

We got five dishes here - five chances to be "wowed", and it never happened.

We got the green curry, and the grilled squid. Both of these were certainly respectable, but nothing amazing. What I liked most about the grilled squid was the nice dipping sauce they gave with it.

We also got the "Pork Neck" dish. The pork had this nasty overly strong "pork" flavor/odor. Like, you know how some people don't like duck or goat because it's too gamey sometimes and has a strong smell? The pork neck was like that somehow. And the meat was very tough. Not good.

We also had some kind of noodle dish. Not Pad Thai, but the flat wide kind, maybe it was drunken noodle. Similar to Mee Katang. Again, respectable, but nothing amazing.

The final, worst dish I want to talk about, is the "Som Tom Tray". This restaurant prides itself on "authentic thai food", and I'd never heard of this before, and the description sounded interesting (see my 1st picture):

Papaya Salad, Vietnamese Pork Roll, Naem Pork Sausage, Pork Rinds, Rice Vermicelli, Boiled Eggs*

Clearly, the first three items are the things you buy the dish for. I had no idea what the "Pork Roll" or the "Naem Pork Sausage" were, so I gave it a shot for $29.

The Som Tom Tray is an absolute scam. And I actually got nauseous while I was eating it - you'll find out why in a bit.

The papaya salad is pretty good, and that's where the positive things end. Pork Rinds are off the shelf from any store that carries them in chip bags, Vermicelli and Boiled Eggs is everyday stuff. So what about the Pork Roll and the Naem Sausage? Well, see my 2nd picture for a piece of each of them.

That top grey/brown thing I assume is the pork roll. If you're familiar with Southeast asian food, there's cheap "fish balls" and mystery "meat balls" that have low grade meat blended with a binder such as tapioca. Think of it as a hot dog, in meatball shaped form. That's basically what the "Vietnamese Pork Roll" pictured was - low grade pork blended and formed with something like tapioca starch. Very disappointing.

But not as disappointing and gross as that bottom thing in my 2nd picture - which I assume is the Naem sausage. Why does this thing look like a pink pomelo? It was quite gross, and I tried multiple times to choke it down, and eventually felt queasy. Upon further inspection of it, I figured out why. Look at my third picture for a snap of a bit of a different sausage piece. It's literally majority tripe (or something very similar) - you can see a bit of tripe fell off near the bottom left of the main sausage piece pictured. No wonder it was making me feel sick - it's so much garbage part of the animal.

Small wonder I never heard of Naem sausage in Thai restaurants before - it's basically actual animal trash (or at least the version of it here is), and my pictures prove it. $29 "Som Tum" for some decent papaya salad, and a bunch of junk/cheap stuff around it. Ugh.

Again, the fact that this place got a michelin recommendation is a disgrace. I joked with the people with me that the michelin awarder who recommended this place must be a friend of the owner - there's no other explanation that makes sense. It has actually made me disregard michelin recommendations going forward without star awards, because if they can highly recommend this place, what good is their opinion for supposedly ...

Went on a Sunday afternoon with my wife. While many of the tables were filled, we were seated immediately in a booth. My wife is vegetarian, so we had vegetable spring rolls (6 dollars) for appetizer. After trying it, we thought it may have come from Costco nearby. It was decent, but I only recalled seeing lettuce and no other vegetables. For lunch, I had the chicken pad se-ew (15 dollars). It took a while to get the food and the server apologized for it. The noodles were thick, and there was a decent amount of chicken, broccoli, and egg. However, there wasn't much sauce and it was mostly mild for me. There was some heat from the chilis, but it could have been mixed into the dish better. I liked my wife's vegetable fried rice (15 dollars) better, which had a good amount of vegetables and was more flavorful than the noodles. It was still on the milder side though. For dessert, we shared the sticky rice with mango (11 dollars). The rice came with coconut milk on the side, which we poured generously and added great flavor from the sweet sticky rice. The mango was pretty fresh and refreshing and complemented the rice well.

The service was friendly and helpful, but with the amount of crowd, they did feel stressed. As mentioned, it did take a while to get the entrees. They apologized to everyone who was waiting quite a while for the food. I think there were only two servers, so they might have been short staffed. They were able to accommodate our diet restrictions on not adding egg to the vegetable fried rice. I was however surprised that the green curry that was already premade had fish ingredients.

The atmosphere was very casual with a good amount of tables and booths. Even though it was quite crowded, we didn't find it too loud.

While I found the food less flavorful than a while ago, I still find isan zaap to still be a decent Thai restaurant in the Millennia area. Food is still good, and service was friendly even with a large crowd. I would still visit again for good Thai food near the...

As a Thai American I have pretty high standards when it comes to Thai food. Last night me and my wife went on a rare date night and I am happy to say we went to a new Thai restaurant that satisfied my cravings for northern thai cuisine. Not only was the taste greatly authentic but even the plates are authentic reminding me of street side stands in Thailand.

Food we ordered: Thai iced tea - perfect blend of tea taste and sweetness. We are not fond of them when they are too sweet. This was a perfect blend.

Mieng Pla Nueng- steamed fish with vermicelli and vegetables. They actually asked if fried fish was ok instead of steamed and we said no problem. I never had this dish before so I even asked how to eat it. Using the vegetables to wrap the pieces of fish in a hand-held borrito style and dip that in the light spicy dip. We loved it! The texture and taste was light but filling. Needless to say we finished the whole fish.

Som tum - papaya salad was great with the right amount of spice and freshness. It was also made with a sauce that was imported from northern Thailand for that authentic flavor

Small plates - isan sausage, moo ping ( my absolute favorite)- pork skewers, khar moo- pork neck are all northern Thai style. These are all items that I miss from Thailand and happy that they have them here with great taste. I normally don’t see these items in other Thai restaurants so I was truly excited.

Service: Was top notch with such an attentive server and the owners even stopped by to say hi and let us know that they are under soft opening now and have only been open for 7 days. With plans to have grand opening in a month.

Needless to say we will def be back! One of the best Thai restaurants we have here.

Isan Zaap - Thai Cafe ( in the old Thai express location) 4693 Gardens Park Blvd, Orlando, FL 32839,...