Lulu's Thai Noodle Shop — Restaurant in Overland Park

Always a pleasure dining at Lulu's! This one (downtown OP) has an atmosphere much closer to the original location in the Crossroads than does the Westwood location, but they're all very nice atmospheres with great wait staff and management.

The food is always outstanding! They got rid of my favorite dish during the pandemic (it had niche popularity), but it's forced me to branch out to try most of the curries and stir fries on the menu and I haven't found one yet that wasn't excellent. If I want a go-to comfort dish, it's definitely the mushroom curry (a red curry). Also, it's been my experience that the spice level is about half a level lower than the majority of Asian restaurants. With the rice dishes, if you're used to places that give lots of rice, maybe order an à la carte order of rice to supplement the rice that comes with your meal.

If I'm eating restaurant food, I don't often get soup, but I often will order one of their 3 soups to compliment my entree if we don't get an appetizer, as all 3 are delish. That said... the Lulu's sampler appetizer is almost mandatory.

Not only is the sampler all amazing, and an even mix of veggie friendly (my spouse is a vegetarian, so will eat the spring rolls while I get the crab Rangoon [real crab]), but try to roughly price out putting together the platter by buying each item à la carte, and you'll realize this is their fan favorite acting as a loss leader. Non sequitur: If you want to separate the meat free dumplings from the ones with pork without cutting them open, at least with pan fried (I mean, you're eating dumplings, might as well go all out, amirite?), just give them a gentle squeeze. The pork dumplings will feel firmer with less...

I would leave zero stars if I could. Truly a horrible experience. My friend and I went in on Valentine’s Day for lunch. Lulu’s is a well known Thai restaurant and I was excited to try it. The service was poor. I understand that it’s Valentine’s Day, but the restaurant was only half full. On top of that, I saw at least two servers maybe three. When we were there there were probably only 8 tables max. And yet we almost NEVER saw our server. When he did come, he was highly agitated and we could barely hear him, it almost felt like he was whispering. If he was actively staying on top of all his tables this would be a different story. But I never saw him. And my friend saw him sitting at the host stand for a majority of the time we were there. None of the food came out together. And it took a long time. We were excited to try the food but were left sorely disappointed. The noodle brother was bland and flavorless, I ordered the chicken medium and again…no flavor. The food is absolutely not worth the price. The table we were sat at was almost funny. The only table with no roses or condiments. I had to move the table just to get to my seat. It almost felt homophobic because we were two women. A strangely hateful experience. I was just going to let this all go because we all have bad days. But then I saw that they charged my card TWICE. Then my friends card was alerted that they tried to charge her twice but her card blocked it. Poor service, bad food and an overall...

Service was great. We got our food exactly as ordered, timely, and our server kept up with refills and more drinks.

Food is good, but not great. It's consistent with Lulu's in the Crossroads. The house Pad Thai was oppressively sweet. I expected a little more spice in my "hot" dish. The fried pork dumplings were, again, good but not great. I think I would've preferred them cooked longer to get a little crispier. My partner's Rainbow Noodles were fine, but unremarkable and a little mealy.

Cocktails were very good and very unique. Priced at $11-$12, they're in a similar range as other fancy cocktails in the area. Well drinks (gin & tonic) were $9, so... Go for the cocktails. Beer selection is very modest and wine by the glass is shockingly expensive. ($10-$12 a glass for what I assume are commodity wines)

Ambiance where we sat (near the entrance) was horrible. It was so loud! I felt like I was in peoples' way... it was weird and I wouldn't sit there again. At least I dug the Bob Marley music they were playing.

I'm sure I'll be back. Learning to customize my order will help. I wouldn't plan to drink here. Maybe a single cocktail with dinner but it just gets too pricey too fast.

All in all, we got 2 cocktails, one well drink, 2 entrees, and fried dumplings. Adding in tax and a reasonable tip, it was just over $100. For that to make sense, I need to be thrilled with the experience. But, again,...