Thai Elephant Express — Restaurant in San Jose

The restaurant isn't environmentally friendly. To save labor costs, all food is served with disposal Styrofoam or plastic containers. This is the main reason I couldn't give 5 star. Other than that, food here has good price-to-quality ratio. Guests could choose from the premade items or order made-to-order dishes. Cooking time is short and speedy. Food here is all flavorful, as Thai food should be. The spicy eggplant tofu is my most favorite dish --- even it causes my butt to spit a little bit fire the next day. The interior is well-maintained and usually clean. Complementary iced water is self-serving -- via small plastic cups. The shape of the restaurant is a long-thin rectangle, so the dining area isn't spacious. I usually would go for take out and eat in my car or at home, depending on my mood. Serving-size-wise, it changes. It depends on who handles your order. Some are more generous and some are a bit stingy, so sometimes I would check out who is currently serving before deciding to enter. Although it opens late till 21:30 or 22:00 (closed Mon), the premade counter selections usually starts to deplete well before closing time, and I think they stop replenishing them at least 30 mins before closing time. Guests could still decide to request made to order dishes, but they would cost more than the pre-made counter selections. The Thai Milk...

Very disappointed with the food and lack of enthusiastic service.

Food: tastes like normal white people food - no explosive or unique flavors. The veggies in my green curry were overcooked and mushy and tamarind fish was not hot and crunchy and tasted like your usual sweet and sour chicken sauce.

Servive: asked for spice after my order and was asked for either dried pepper (looks like the packages you get at pizza joints) or garlic pepper (the bright red ones with seeds you see vietnamese people eat). When asked which one is spicier the old lady said she doesn't know (ohhhhkay... you serious?!) and handed me both. Either way, neither were even remotely close to medium spicy. At that point I didn't even wonna ask if they had legit fresh peppers I can have.

Such a shame for a place that's family owned and prides itself on freshly made with no msg.

I won't be back to this place but I could suggest a good alternative in SSJ called Thai Grata. Now, I only had the Pad See Ew there but spicy was def SPICY!!! And food tasted fresher and hot too. Only drawback is they are a bit more expensive at around...

This place had excellent Thai food. Stumbled upon it coincidentally as I was in the area for Vietnamese food.

I ordered the pad Thai (mild) and pad see ew. Both were generously portioned and came out hot. The pad Thai mild was still pretty spicy, so if you can't take spice don't even try mild. I thought it was just the right amount of spice and I liked that I didn't have to mix the noodles myself. A lot of other places you have to mix the pad Thai noodles and sauce yourself once you get the dish. Not here.

The pad see ew was also good. Again large portion and the noodles were well sauced. I'm the chicken breast it came with was thinly sliced and not overly dry (as many places are that serve chicken breast). Also came with broccoli and tofu. The broccoli could have used a little more season but that's okay as the rest dish had enough sauce.

Would definitely recommend and would like to try more of their food.

I came in within an hour of closing time (~810pm) and there was still a lot more people coming in to order food.

There wasn't much seating inside so probably best to get it and go somewhere...