Thai China Bistro — Restaurant in Tucson

Very pleasantly surprised! My sister and I tried this place for the first time on our lunch break earlier today, and were treated to a great meal by some very attentive staff.

My sister had pad thai with chicken and a strawberry boba tea slush with tapioca pearls to drink. I got the the sweet & sour chicken with a small bowl of egg drop soup and boring a diet coke... because my sister neglected to tell me how amazing bobas are... I will not make that mistake again. She did let me taste the boba and almost didn't get it back. Seriously, that stuff needs to be categorized as liquid candy, along with root beer and cream soda. To me, it tasted like a strawberry Whistle Pop.

Despite how delicious the boba was, the food was by no means negligible by comparison. The portions were surprisingly large, and our food was brought out steamy hot. I got a bite from my sister's plate and it was tasty, but I haven't had any other pad thai so, unfortunately, I don't have any basis for comparison. I was, however, quite happy with my own sweet and sour chicken. The only thing I could recommend to make it better would be an extra side of the sweet and sour sauce. I'd put that sauce it in the same category as the aforementioned liquid candy if it were meant to be taken as a beverage.

Additionally, the staff was very courteous and attentive. We got there before the lunch rush (a little after 11am), and were immediately seated. Both the waitress and the manager checked in while we were eating to make sure everything was how we liked, and the waitress was nice enough to refill my drink for me even though the soda fountain is accessible to diners. When it was time to pay, the manager observed that we were heading back to work and let us know that we could order ahead and have our meal ready on arrival if we were ever short on time.

Overall, I'm delighted with this place and will certainly be returning and recommending it...

Usually I would go for a one star but I'm already lenient because it's a mom and pop shop and it'll be just unfair to discourage them but...

The food is okay at best. Nothing special but also not bad. It just has no unique flavor. It's mostly bland for the most part... Now the service...oh dear. The place has seven tables at top and it happened that I came as the third guest. There was one table before me that was eating and a table that looked like they just ordered. After being seated and given menus, the gentleman that seemed like is the owner, proceeded to leave to answer a phone call and then another table walked in that he had to seat. Then a take out order came in and it just kept going downhill from there. Now he has seven tables, an order of takeout and still has to look after the two tables besides taking our order and then figuring out the rest of the tables that came after... Few moments of chaos, he finally takes our order. We are already 20 minutes in. More people are coming in but there is no room. Somebody opted to sit outside but he was number 8 in the queue and sadly he walked away after he was ignored for a long time. An hour and 10 minutes later we got our food. I got my appetizer about 10 minutes before my entree.

An entire visit took an hour and 35 minutes on a Sunday around noon.

Honestly I suggest getting help. Nobody can do a restaurant by themselves. You need help. Those seven tables that you have inside the small restaurant cannot be maximized if you're going this slow. You got to figure out how to keep those tables moving so you can make more money. If on average, each table is going to sit an hour and a half, you're not going to reach your potential.

And to tie all of this together the price point is out of line. The portions are small which is okay but it has to match the price. Not for something that's...

There is about as much distance between the food served here and authentic Thai flavors, as there is between this restaurant and Thailand itself. In other words, they are a world apart.

We ordered four classic Thai dishes - Tom Yum soup, papaya salad, Thai curry and fried rice. NONE of them had even a hint of Thai flavor and all of them were SWEET, despite asking for higher spice levels. Even the fifth dish, the so-called 'spicy wings', was sweet and our waitress claimed that it is "supposed to be sweet". Seriously, they should BAN sugar from this restaurant.

Just to give you an idea, here's what passes for Thai papaya salad at this restaurant: shredded green papaya, SOAKED in sugar, mixed with a few chunks of tomatoes, placed as a blob on the plate, with big lettuce leaves on one side and a few roasted whole peanuts on the other side. The only flavor is overwhelming sweetness. There is no explosive and heady combination of multiple flavors that a true authentic Thai papaya salad delivers. It was really sad. Never thought a salad would make me so sad.

Do not trust the many positive reviews you will find of this restaurant online. They are about as reliable as the average Thailander's review of say... Mexican restaurants. If you want to eat generic, non-spicy (I don't mean just hot chillies, but all the complex spices used in Thai cuisine), sweet-flavored and dumbed-down-for-Westerners Asian food, I guess you will be fine. But if you have even a slightly discerning palate for Asian spices and/or are looking for something that is somewhat close to real Thai food, run away from here.

The only saving grace of this restaurant is that it is vegan- and vegetarian-friendly. And it's cheap. However, the saying that you get what you pay for is undoubtedly true...