Thai Lao — Restaurant in San Antonio

If you took an upscale taqueria, swapped the bull fight and cojunto posters for Asian silk tapestries and banners, you would pretty much have this restaurant down. The far end of the restaurant towards the kitchen had the usual lighted two door refrigerator stocked with canned soft drinks and other potables. There was a bar along the left side as you entered, but besides that this place had a real unexpected Mom & Pop feel.

Lemon grass and garlic chicken with stir fried veggies caught my eye and was ordered. I used to get this chicken lemon grass at a small place on the corner of Datapoint and Wurzbach that is now a, surprise, Mexican food restaurant and it served an outstanding rendition of this dish as a lunch special. My less adventurous and non-Thai acclimated spouse attempted to get an egg noodle dish (there were only two, all the rest are rice noodle) with beef, but the translation was lost somewhere in the order process with the less than sociable wait help. Like the movie, "Cool Hand Luke", "what we had here was a failure to communicate".

I cringed at the sight of my spouse's entree delivery as I noticed a nest of hard crispy noodles on her plate. After a short little jousting session with the waitress, the crispy noodles were replaced with stir fried noodles, but did not come with any sauce as had been requested. And I was thinking that I had the wrong culture for a while as I requested nuoc mam from the waitress three different times without success. Was it my pronunciation or her auditory wax concentration? Anyway, I finally succeeded getting some fish sauce from the manager when he visited our table to insure our satisfaction.

Ordered as medium spicy, my chicken dish was characterized by an overly generous amount of crispy carrot with scalloped edges, some fat half moon slices of squash, and an all too woody stemmed grass and just slightly lemony flavored chicken that did not contain much heat or garlic flavor (or chicken) to speak of. The white rice that accompanied the dish was, well, white rice. That's why I wanted the nuoc mam. Equally bland, the dish my wife sampled necessitated a call for styro less than 1/4 of the way through. The take-out ought to make the neighborhood raccoons happy.

The menu here is extensive with loads of curries, rice noodle dishes, etc. and they all sounded appetizing. I don't want to say that our selected lunch entrees were totally unacceptable, but they definitely needed to add some zing to their quality, preparation and service. With lunch specials of $8.95 and up (sans drink) you would expect this Thai restaurant to be much more than Lao-sy. I must admit though, the egg drop soup was some of the...

What a wonderful experience today! After checking out the menu and the great reviews for this hidden gem of a place that my wife and I came upon for the first time, we ate here for linner (lunch/dinner).

First and foremost, our waitress, Carey, was hands down the most personable, prompt and professional waitress we've experienced in quite some time. Good service is common, however, outstanding service seems to be rare.

The atmosphere is comfortably cozy with its warm-toned walls, beautiful Asian artwork (and statues), and modern chic tables and chairs. The overall place appears crisp clean, and the restrooms are well-maintained as well.

When we ordered our drinks, we were delighted that they were served in frosted glasses, just an extra bonus.

And last but not least, the two meals that we ordered and shared---Drunken Noodles with beef and veggies and Pad Sa-Si-Ew with pork and veggies--- were delicious!

They were perfectly balanced with a combination of salty, sweet, sour, bitter and/or umami flavors and various textures that wasn't overly salty.

We both chose level 4 of 5 for spice (5 being the spiciest) since we love spicy foods (but not to the point where we lose the sense of taste), and it was just the right amount of kick.

We had never tried the Pad Sa-Si-Ew with pork and veggies before, but it's definitely a favorite now for both of us, with its very flavorful, mushroom, soy-based sauce. Though the beef was good, we preferred the tender and savory pork.

Overall, both dishes tasted as though it was made with fresh ingredients.

This pace is definitely a keeper on the list of MUST continue to savor and enjoy. Again, to the entire genuinely friendly staff, to include the chef, thank you for the memorable...

Visited for lunch, ordered the Pad Thai with chicken and shrimp. Also ordered the "Perfect" sushi roll. Egg drop soup was a fantastic start to my meal. The Pad Thai was right on par with the best, also presented nicely. The Perfect sushi roll was just that - tuna on top tasted fresh, the tempura fried shrimp inside was cooked just right and had a nice crunch to it. The three sauces drizzled on top tasted great and tied it all together.

It was not very busy while I was there, so maybe that was a benefit. But either way, the service was very good. My server was very polite and professional. I was checked on multiple times by both the manager (owner?) and my server. My glass of ice cold water was always full.

I did ask for a Sapporo beer which never made it's way over, but honestly with the mass amount of food I ordered I was actually kind of glad that it didn't. I also would have had several chances to remind them about it during the times they checked back to make sure everything was going well for me, so really not their fault at all.

Great food, awesome service. I only wish they were located closer to where I live so I could go there more often, but definitely will return if I'm ever in...