Bahn Thai — Restaurant in San Diego

Tonight was very upsetting with the experience of placing my order. I placed my order at 6:54 PM. The lady on the phone told me would be ready in 30 minutes. I show up and within 30 minutes I pay for my food and they told me it was not ready yet. So I go outside and I sit there and I wait patiently , waiting for my order. I would say about every 10 minutes I would go inside to see if maybe my order was done and if they just forgot about me. Each time I went in to check on the order they would tell me it’s coming out. I sat outside for 30 minutes with no distractions as I was by myself and my cell phone was in the car. And I had noticed that this family had placed the order at that counter as I was paying for my phone order had received their food before I did. I go inside and ask them once again is my food ready it has been about an hour and she looks on the shelf and says yes here it is and I specifically told her my food is not even warm are you telling me it’s been sitting there here this whole time, and some other lady stepped in and said, oh it just came out and she felt my food and realize it wasn’t as hot as it should be, and said that they came outside and said my order number several times, which they absolutely did not do And do not appreciate the lie! This was very frustrating and because it took so long to get my food I just said you know what it’s fine and walked away. I am very disappointed in my recent experience with...

No way this should be the highest rated Thai restaurant in San Diego. Some of the old reviews said that this place wont start cooking your food until you are seated. Well, that rule doesn’t apply anymore and they are churning out orders as fast as they can - and I don’t blame them for that at all. They should make that $$$, but just know that if quality got them their score in the past, it’s not a priority for them anymore. This is a “fast Thai” place now.

I ordered the Thai basil fried rice - thats what I order first at a new Thai place for comparison purposes. The paper plate came to my table and right away I saw that the rice was glistening from too much oil - a bad sign. There were also only a couple of ingredients, basil and chicken. Normally a basil Thai fried rice would have more to it. The flavor was ok - it had “wok hei” which is a minimum for a decent fried rice but it was too greasy and barebones. I had better Thai by Joshua Tree National Park during my week long visit to San Diego than I did here. I imagine over the next year or so as they churn out orders at blazing speed they will dilute their ratings, and they will laugh all the way to the bank I’m sure.

Overall, no need to go out of your way to come here its not special. All Thai restaurants are pretty good if you've noticed. That stems from the Thai governments strict quality control around the first Thai restaurants that popped...

Bahn Thai would never survive as a restaurant in its homeland Thailand. Last night I ordered based on the Google ratings and once again these reviews have let me down. The food seemed to come off a typical steam table you see at a buffet. But let's get to some basics. Thai food is usually fresh and complex in its taste. The sweet, spicy, umami flavors typically meld in perfect unison but I am afraid this was not the case with 2 of the 3 plates we ordered. The spring rolls are OK... I say OK because they certainly were well made but the contents could have had a 'fresher combination' and perhaps inclusion of some herbs would have lifted the dish. The dipping sauce was anything you could get anywhere. Nothing special. As far as the much ballyhooed 'Pad See Ew' it was OK. The vegetables mixed with it were in very large chunks and not much of a mix. I am used to more precise cuts so not impressed. And why that is I important is because of how the sauce permeates the ingredients evenly and with a satisfying taste. A few of these felt raw. The Firecracker chicken was hammered. And it had that 'buffet like' feel to it, like it was cooked long before I ordered it. My experience with Thai is that the food is cooked to order... this food simply was not. I suppose this is the result of such success and growth. They were a gem when they were a little hole in the wall on Park Blvd. Won't go...