Esan Thai SE Division — Restaurant in Portland

My partner and myself went to this restaurant for lunch. The only female waitress for the whole place was responsible for people inside and giving takeout orders in the same time. She is definitely overworked and needs additional help during rush hour.

After waiting for 10+ minutes. We ordered two different entries, one w/o onions and two iced tea’s with coconut milk.

Our iced tea’s never came, both entries came with onions, while we asked during the order that one entry should have been without onions.

My partner took out onions out of his entry, but his lunch experience wasn’t as good, as it was planned. After bringing up issue regarding part of the order that never came and onions, waitress apologized and took out iced teas that were never delivered out of the bill.

During the payment, she asked to just sign the bill with 20% added tip, and she was visibly upset that I didn’t leave the tip and asked about why I paid only the food cost. I can be wrong, but we usually leave tip when the service is exceptional, and food order is right. While on the human level I feel very sorry for her being so overworked, and this is definitely something for the owners to consider, on the customer level - my experience wasn’t the best - I haven’t received half of my order, and the other half that I received had an ingredient which should not be there.

My food was tasty(mixed veggies with chicken), my partner didn’t like his food, but he hates onions, so that was expected. I will be happy to give this place another try, if owners will take a better care of their employees and will stuff restaurant accordingly...

12/12/20: 4.75 out 5 - This review was is based on E-San Thai being delivered to my home via one of the delivery services.

My wife and I was use to eating at the food cart that use to be at the Tidbits Food Carts before shutting down, and was delighted to when we found out that E-San Thai now opened a "brick and mortar" on SE Division. Hence, the delivery service since we don't live in the area.

The food arrived as instructed, and prepared to our request. That's a plus, considering it was delivered.

We had ordered 3 items since it was just my wife and I eating. At first, it didn't seem like much, but once we started digging in, it actually is more than plenty. It was still hot, and quite very tasty.

With everything going on, we are hopeful that will be able to visit and actually have a sit-in dining experience.

I definitely would recommend trying this place once and decide for yourself, if you haven't done so by...

There was only my friend and I eating and one other table. The waitress seemed very bothered by having to help us. She didn't stop and listen to what we wanted for our drinks. So we had to order drinks 3 separate times all we were getting was tea and coffee. The food was all right it wasn't anything I would go back for. And the portions were very small and I feel very overpriced. The tea was very good. We got dessert the sweet sticky rice I think it's called and that was delicious. It was very frustrating how the waitress didn't come back and check on us to see if we wanted anything else. Which we did. I've worked in the food service industry the last 30 years. I don't feel I'm being picky about the service just very truthful. There's quite a few Thai restaurants I would drive out of my way to go to rather than walk a couple blocks...