Elephant #8 Thai Cuisine & Sushi — Restaurant in Sharon

I love the Elephant #8 in Mercer PA. It has delicious food well served and impeccably prepared. And I expected that at Elephant #8 in Sharon. (Foreshadowing) It’s a beautiful place, a nicely designed and appointed restaurant both welcoming and warm. It looks great! And we were welcomed and seated and attended to with grace and charm. Not that deep, but really great customer service.

Then we ate. I got the crispy duck. It was perfectly prepared. The skin was crispy! The duck was cooked perfectly, not over cooked and tough like I seem to always get when I order duck. It was succulent. And it was covered in duck sauce. Sweet duck sauce. A surprise, but it was good. I just did not expect that taste in this place. Wife got Pad Thai. We eat Thai, a lot. All over. That place in Wilmington NC? Many times. (It’s easy to find on Facebook, and you know it when you see the pictures). Myrtle Beach had a couple of great ones. Wives from the Air Base that used to be there. Pittsburgh. Love Nicky’s! And all my assorted friends wives while I was in the Air Force. So, I’m pretty familiar with an authentic Thai taste profile. The five components, and when restaurants leave out seasonings, or dummy down their food for American tastes, don’t like it. Anyways, wife’s Pad Thai she ordered spicy. I had read this place does not do the 1 to 10 spice level thing, well, they don’t. Tried to get it across to the waiter want it spicy, but not hot. Just a bit. But Thai food has to have some heat, even limited heat. The waiter said ok, and brought out her Pad Thai. She tried to eat it, I tried to eat it. (I was in Korea for two years also. I laugh at spicy food) this stuff was hot! The noodles and sauce were full of red pepper. I never send food back. I mean never. This was my first time ever. This wasn’t moderate, it was full on furnace. Which is appropriate for when you say “10” and they try to warn you off. It came back, after I sent it back, zero spice, (so the prior reviews are correct, don’t get spicy, and try to get light, or medium, like literally what every Thai restaurant and home I have eaten at literally around the world has) and covered with that sweet duck sauce stuff. It looked funny when she got it. I’ve never seen Pad Thai before that was literally covered in an orangish sauce. It always looks clean, fresh. That’s one of the reasons I like Thai food so much. It’s seasoned, not sauced, like some plate of chow-mein at the Chinese buffet. And with a fragrance that is so familiar you know it when you get it. I’m assuming the area there prefers sweetly flavored food. Not going back. I am going to the one in Mercer. But not Sharon. I’m not a fan of places that try to fit their food to local tastes. Which is why I hate Asian fusion, but I’ll go because I’ve been warned. And don’t take this as a negative review. I could take my mom here and she would love it. And it was beautiful inside. And the service was great, and I did over-tip when we paid, because I sent back that food. And took all the blame for it when we paid and left. Here’s some pics! The duck was great! The Pad Thai? Not so much. Oh, the summer rolls sucked too. One Thai basil leaf per half? And no seasonings I could detect. Nope, hard pass for me. If anyone reading this who actually knows what they’re saying when they write a review and say “it tastes authentic!” Based on what? That place you ate at in Iowa? Sorry, that was uncalled for. I apologize, it was my fault… (Take a close look at the Pad Thai. Mmm orange sweet sauce! Oh, seriously, look up five Thai tastes, you’ll say “that’s why it’s so good” at other places. But like I said, mom will...

Ok today's review is on the Thai restaurant elephant 8 @ 52 N Sharpsville Ave, Sharon, PA 16146

Food= appetizer was not good Appetizer Yummy plate= meatballs were legit chicken breast with no seasoning. The spring rolls were small and flavorless felt like store bought frozen. Crab rangoon unfortunately was one of the biggest let downs... It was basically a hard shell filled with a large amount of cream cheese and very little imitation crab meat.(not even actual crab) Now I will say the one thing that did taste nice out of the appetizer was the Gyoza dumplings the flavor was very nice and the texture was definitely complimentary. Overall the yummy plate would get 2.5 star out of 5 appearance and dumplings being only thing nice.

Main course Pad Kee Mao= was delicious. Chicken was tender and flavor packed. Veggies perfectly cooked. Noodles although not something I liked due to texture were still very tasty. Sauce delicious. Portion size was perfect Overall rating 5 stars out of 5 star

Atmosphere= the building is beautiful, very peaceful inside, looks clean.

5 stars out of 5

Staff is very quick to fill beverages and bring out the food very attentive. Very respectful and they worked very well as a team doing circles around all the tables making sure that everyone was taken care of.

Staff was very polite while yes there was a slight language barrier they did great with there service and trying. (Language barrier was more of a understanding of what we were trying to say not necessarily what they were

5 stars out of 5

Owner is very pushy she mentioned 4 times where we need to pay when done and while attempting to be polite was very overbearing about us needing to finish our food and leave even though we were just there talking and enjoying ourselves not being loud and dressed nicely. Staff definitely felt obligated to be pushy on getting us our check and making sure that we were eating quick to make the table ready for the next customers but not by their own choice but because the owner was pushing it.

1.5 stars out of 5 (in my opinion almost ruined the whole experience)

Pricing= the pricing for everything was very reasonable

Over all...

We arrived around 7:20 and waited until about 8 to be seated. Didn’t get our food until 8:20-8:30 when the restaurant closes at 9. We waited about 10 minutes before someone took our order. We were in the middle of eating when the niece of the owner throws to go boxes and bags on our table and states that they need to clean the restaurant for 30 minutes.

She was very rude and to rush paying customers out of the establishment is not professional. And it wasn’t our fault that we had to wait for everything.

Having been employed in customer service I understand what it’s like to have customers stay past closing, it can be frustrating. But you do not turn away money. Especially when we left just 15 mins past closing. They treated us like we were there until 10pm. And we weren’t the only table that they rushed out.

Overall the food wasn’t that great because you could tell it was rushed but still managed to all come out at different times (mine being the last brought out). But then was rushed out! I left the to-go boxes and the food, wasn’t worth bringing home in my opinion. The service was awful, I have never been told to basically stop eating my food and to get out because the niece “has an hour drive home”. Not sure how that’s relevant when I know people who drive 2hrs to and from work and don’t get home until 2am, go to bed, wake up and do it all over again.

Not all of the staff members were terrible. It was mainly the niece and there was a young lady at the front, who was rather short with us as well and all we did was make sure that she had the correct tab in hand, since WE NEVER GOT TO LOOK AT ONE! We weren’t going to assume nor were we going to just pay for whatever they wrote down. It wound up being incorrect and items we did not order were on our bill, but we never got to look at it anyway. Terrible!

We live in Austintown and it was unanimously agreed that we’d much rather continue to travel an hour for our Thai dinner outings.

We will not...