Mina's Cafe — Restaurant in Salem

UPDATED

Original review is below but I wanted to change the review from 1* to 3*. They did refund the items that were not good. That amounted to half of the order. They were polite and responsive.

I love Thai food. I've been to Thailand multiple times and not just the tourist areas.

I drove across town at the recommendation of a friend. When I got home to eat, the chicken satay looked terrible, was super dry, and didn't have any flavor. So, disappointed, I opened my pad Thai chicken. Again, no flavor and super dry. Mixed it up to see if the sauce or flavor some how made it's way to the bottom of the container... Sadly no. Second bite was just a big chunk of chicken fat. Didn't try anything else I bought for nearly $85. Put it all in the trash. Completely inedible.

Called to let them know and was polite about it. The lady was very "sorry to hear that". She said she would call Mina to see about a refund and took my number down.

Depending on their response, or lack of, I'll update...

I’m so incredibly sad to write this review. I used to come here for lunch quite often before COVID because they had really good Thai food , I went back today for the first time in 2 years and the food was not anything like it used to be. I got what I normally ordered which was chicken pad Thai. The whole dish was dry, the lime looked like it was a month old (the peel almost had no color), and the smoothie with the tapioca pearls was terrible. The tapioca pearls got so hard I couldn’t eat them, and the ones I did manage to get had a very very strange flavor. Sadly I don’t think I will be coming back. I got my order to go but while I was waiting I noticed it looked like they a water leak in the roof, and you can tell that area has black mold stains :/ and the layout of the place is so tight...

The pad thai was way too sweet and one of the worst I have ever had, there was no balanced flavor at all, only sweet. I added a lot of chili spice to try to balance out the flavor and it did not help much. The bubble tea is more of a frosted shake, not a real bubble tea. They did not know what I meant when I asked whether they sold "milk tea." If this is truly the best bubble tea that Salem has to offer, then that is really not saying much. The bobas were good though.

As for service, I had to go inside to request service, and later a server randomly handed me a food container when I had not asked for one. Then one of the women started pruning a plant 4 feet from me while I was trying to read my book. I gave a lower tip than 15% for this, which I never do. Do...