Takieng Thai Cuisine — Restaurant in Rancho Cordova

Summary: There has to be better Thai food around here. I'll keep looking.

I just moved to Fair Oaks and live near Takieng, so I was hoping it would be good. I've been there twice – once solo and once with friends – but I don't think I'll be going back. It is not nearly as good as its current 4.4 rating would suggest.

On both occasions, the stir-fry dishes had over-cooked meat (which made for stringy chicken and rubbery shrimp) and under-cooked, nearly raw vegetables. The flavoring was just so-so. Not actively bad, really, but not good either. Just bland. It was nowhere near the level of flavor I'm used from the Thai restaurants near my old home. The dishes were edible, but not really enjoyable.

Their spiciness levels were weird too. Their "medium" is what I would call "fairly hot but not too bad". A friend who grew up on spicy Chinese food ordered her dish "Spicy" and it was way too hot even for her. They said that "Spicy" is the middle of their range, which goes "Mild", "Medium", "Spicy", "Extra Spicy", "Thai Spicy", so I would not expect it to be too hot for someone who's eaten spicy Szechuan food their whole life..

When we pointed this out, our server didn't offer to have the chef re-make the dish at a more reasonable spice level..She didn't even apologize. She just laughed. So I have to say the service was not really that great either.

So: mediocre food, crazy spice levels, and mediocre service. Three strikes...

This is the second time I've been here and the food has been exceptional both times! The Thai iced coffee is incredibly strong and just sweet enough to conquer the bitter tones, be careful! The jasmine tea was delicate and delicious. They also offer standard Coke products.

The tom kha soup is delicate and flavorful, and the large is enough to feed three or four with an appetizer. The ginger chicken packs a tone of flavor and is enough for two! The chicken satay appetizer was also very light in flavor, but the charring was perfect and the peanut dipping sauce was amazing.

The restaurant is very clean, napkins were folded cloth and felt fancy, and the staff are knowledgeable and kind. Our food didn't all arrive at the same time, but we absolutely enjoyed all of it. Parking is plentiful but accessibility by wheelchair could be difficult as this little shopping center didn't think their sidewalks through fully.

I highly recommend a visit here, you will leave full...

We came here about 45 minutes before closing, and service was really slow. It was roughly 30 minutes from the time we ordered to when we received the meal. By itself, that wasn't too big of an issue. But what was bad was that they started cleaning up with very strong-smelling chemicals before closing, which kind of ruined the experience.

On the positive side, the decorations were really awesome. I liked the wood carvings, gold fish statues, elephant statues, and beautiful flowers. It was a clean restaurant that was in good condition.

As for the food, the Angel Wings had amazing an excellent sweet-and-sour-sauce taste, and included some of the best crispy chicken I've had in a long time.

Everything else was disappointing. The mango curry was rather atypical. The mango was too hard and lacked sweetness. The Kai Ta Kri was too dry and also not one bit sweet. I got tired of it after...