Thai Chili Cuisine — Restaurant in Santa Clara

We had a fantastic family holiday dinner at this Thai chili cuisine located in the Santa Clara Sunnyvale border just off Lawrence expressway exit in El Camino Real. There is plenty of parking. Being a vegetarian, this restaurant has plenty of options to make the dishes the vegetarian way with substitutes. The menu has a plethora of options from noodles, rice, curries and soups. Most of them can be made vegetarian by substituting the meats with tofu. We ordered the yellow and panang curry both of which came with sumptuous amount of vegetables. For the starter, we ordered Roti that was served with peanut and yellow sauce. The spicy crispy tofu wasn't spicy it all. In fact, it has a mix of sweet taste. None of the dishes had fish or oyster sauce which usually other Thai restaurants add in vegetarian dishes. For the kids, we ordered the house fried rice. The waiter was comfortable enough to ask us how much spicy level we needed for each dish. Throughout the dinner service, the entire restaurant had a happy vibe and all employees had a smile everytime. The interior is decorated with Thai decor and items that typically speak of Thai history. The whole ambience is great. With great service and delicious food, this place is...

Used to be my one of my favorite places but the service declined considerably; not a good place to eat anymore. Waiter made my family and I wait for over 40 minutes. When we asked for our food he said it was coming, then he came back to our table with the most stupid excuse saying that he forgot to place our order; not even the drink orders were placed. If he really cared about his service, he would have placed our order in a timely manner as we were the second customer seated in the center of the restaurant for a Sunday lunch. Meanwhile the restaurant is filling up with other customers who are served their food on time. He ignored my family, never coming back to refill our water glasses. Seriously! His discourtesy and lack of respect was obvious. When you make a huge mistake like this one, at least try to make it right with the customer. He just said it would be another 40 minutes to have our food out, if we still wanted to wait. I HAVE NEVER BEEN TREATED LIKE THIS. Hopefully the owner will do a careful review of the business and how the staff takes care of the customers. So...

Thai Chili Cuisine has such a cute and charming atmosphere. The cottage-style setup with happy plants, beautiful handcrafted artwork, and soft lights really sets a cozy vibe. Unfortunately, the food didn’t match the setting. We ordered the Pad Thai with chicken, Pad See Ew, and Chicken Satay, but the flavors were seriously lacking. The chicken satay didn’t taste fresh, and the peanut sauce was pretty bland.

Both the Pad Thai and Pad See Ew lacked any real Thai flavor, and we found ourselves adding lots of hot sauce just to give the dishes some kick. If we hadn't been so hungry from a long day of moving, we probably wouldn’t have finished the meal. Despite these disappointments, the service of the waitress and staff were tentative and friendly; even with a busy evening.

We eat at Thai spots regularly around the Bay Area, and sadly, this was one of the most disappointing. The ambiance was lovely, but the food needs significant improvement. Of course, everyone’s tastes are different, but based on our experience, we wouldn’t be in a...