Pad Thai Cuisine — Restaurant in Sunnyvale

Bottom line upfront, bland food, lackluster service, recommending to our lunch group to not return.

I've had the food before and it's always been rather lackluster. Today we went as a group from work and the food and general service was something to be desired. I ordered the red curry tofu from the lunch menu and when confirming the order I was asked the level of spice I wanted in the curry. I responded with spicy and she double-checked I wanted it spicy. When it was delivered to be it was presented as hot spicy. I was excited about this as I like spicy food a lot and thought my asking for medium in the past was the cause for dull meals.

I take a bite expecting to get a nice kick and wait for a few seconds bracing for the onslaught of seasonings on my tongue. And I was rewarded with nothing. So I try another bite, hearing the exclamations of spice from the pad Thai next to me, still disappointed. I put a full soon of extra seasonings into the curry to get any real reaction, until that point it was just bland.

If you measure the service of a restaurant by the amount your water is refilled I would give this place 5 stars, however, that's not all service entails. Checking on the food, offering boxes for leftovers, etc all these also fall under service and the place was clearly too busy to keep up with any of this. I asked twice for a box and when the server came over he took my food rather than providing a box.

This would be okay if I could measure the amount of a tip reflecting the service received, but it was automatically added to our 7 person lunch group.

I know this is a very popular place, but frankly, I've never...

The food and service were top-notch. I would give the place 5 stars, but there was some inflexibility from the staff when it came to seating our party of four. One of us (that actually rode in my car) went next door to order something to go for later in the evening and was not with us when my name was called. They refused to seat us when our turn came up even though we explained that he was right next door. They were adamant and moved to the next party. We waited an additional 15+ minutes for our table because of this. I do not fault them 100% for this. Many people say that all members of their party are there when they are not, so I can understand their point of view. But assuming my statement was a flat-out lie to get a table before all members of my party were present was a bit extreme.

The other detractor from my rating was that they would not split the bill four ways. They have a 'two credit cards per table' policy. This was not posted and was not a show-stopper, but we frequent many places and they have no problem doing this. Additionally, we were technically not at one table for four, but at two tables for two that had been put together to seat us. I know... I know.... That's getting a bit ridiculous.

All-in-all, I can say that I will definitely be returning to try more of their dishes. The place is packed for a reason. I supposed that with that level of popularity, you can impose the rules you see fit to impose on your customers in order to manage your business expenses most effectively. I do not blame them for this. See you again soon, Pad...

We frequently go here for lunch on Friday. There's a line if you show up on friday after 12pm. Co-workers said the pad thai dish and the pad see ew is a bit sweet. I usually order spicy cat fish and I'm happy with it. There's a "free" salad with a peanut based dressing as starter while you wait for your entree. Staff seems to have been reduced to maybe 2 waiters/waitresses and it takes a bit longer for the dishes to be served. We had a unpleasant surprise today. With a party of 5, the waitress told us that service charge is included so we trusted her and paid. After we left, we looked at the check (to split) and discovered that another 20% tip was added on top of the 20% service...