Thai Café — Restaurant in Traverse City

Gave Thai Café a try recently and while I wasn't totally turned off, I was very disappointed. Normally, my partner and I would cook Thai at home, but both of us have been feeling under the weather and thought we'd try a new restaurant.

We ordered Pad Thai and Peanut Curry Pad Thai as our main dishes with a a couple appetizers. We added some extra chicken and peanuts as we all know too well that shrinkflation is a factor in every restaurant these days. One dish was ordered extra spicy and the other one mild.

The first problem was that they reversed the spiciness. So that made it impossible for my partner to eat what she ordered.

Secondly, the spiciness may not have mattered since both dishes looked identical. Which needs to be said that this is not a good Pad Thai recipe in general. Both "versions" lacked substance, and were basically chicken, a small amount of carrots and onion tossed in a ton of noodles and cream sauce. And the added cost of extra chicken and extra peanuts were not justified in the prices.

Which is the final problem. We paid nearly $60 for 2 dishes and two apps, that if it was good, would have been worth it. But these dishes were clearly made for American palettes with little to no expectations of quality ingredients. I shouldn't expect much from a local restaurant like this, but the cost was WAY too steep for what you get. Even the money spent on peanuts were laughable. Ordering extra meant maybe half a teaspoon, but literally paid for an entire bottle of nuts with additional profit for the owners. We even looked it up.

All in all, the food was edible as a grab and go lunch, if the prices were justified. However, I would give ANYTHING to have reliable proper Asian and Asian-American food cooked with pride that represented the culture. So tired of this white bread food and being charged double its worth. Sad when we can do twice as good as this at home and pay less than half the price. Which once again, will have to be the case going forward as we can't justify the value...

I'd been here before and enjoyed the experience very much, hence my return with my husband. The egg drop soup had very dark spots on the greens that were obviously not from overcooking as they were crunchy and barely cooked. The waitress was absolutely the best part of the experience and the ONLY reason I'd return is to give that darling young woman another tip, because oh how she deserves it! She asked the cooks if certain items might be made gluten free for me to which they replied to her that they DIDN'T KNOW WHAT WAS IN IT and to just tell me no, yes...they had no idea what they were cooking. I heard her tell the cooks the rice didn't look right and she was concerned about it and I clearly heard them tell her that it was "good enough" and that they'd make more when she ran out. So my lovely coconut curry with tomatoes and pineapple and peppers and chicken was served on crunchy rice and there was one piece of tomato and one small chunk of pineapple, although there were plenty of very crunchy peppers. Dissatisfied is the least of how I felt and my husband kept apologising to me as this was our first dining out experience after Covid 19 restrictions. Again, our server was excellent and if I ran a restaurant (as I did in my early 30's) I'd hire her in a hot second. That was the only redeemable part of our lunch yesterday. The two Stars on this review are...

I tried this based on the reviews here and all I can concluded is Traverse city is starved for Thai food.

Got the Pad Thai Talay (seafood) with medium heat. First of all... I'm not sure there was any spice. A medium heat should moisten my brow but I left there with it dry. If that was the only problem, as spice is subjective, I wouldn't have had an issue.

The Pad Thai had a bit too much oil and liquid in it.... good Pad Thai should be moist... not runny. The shrimp and squid was ok... but the scallops tasted like something old you'd get at a buffet... small and tough with little flavor.

Before I started the meal I ordered a Tom Kha Chicken soup for later in the evening (I'm here on business) and I've got to say... blah. Someone needs to mention Tom Kha is supposed to have coconut milk in it and be spicy. Other then being white in color, that is about all they got right. Very saltly, no chili peppers, Galangal or any heat... indeed as I am picking though the soup I'm seeing diced tomatoes. Seriously?!?

I'll be returning home Friday and my first stop will be my favorite Thai restaurant to flush my system with real Tom Kha soup.

2 stars...