Thai Passion

We work close by and eat here at least a couple times a month. Just because someone orders to-​go doesn’t mean you can put your rotten vegetables in the dish. Out of sight out of mind doesn’t apply here. I’ve wasted $ 8 but learned a valuable lesson, not to eat here again.

I wavered between a 4 and a 5 star but have to lean towards the 5. I only wish they had a liquor license, as I like a nice strong drink with my really HOT food. I started going to this Thai Passion about two months ago, and if two weeks go by and I haven’t been there, I have to get back immediately. Never disappointed with the service, quality of food, or prices. Still need to try out the weekend brunch, and I know I won’t be disappointed.

In fact, we are back, the the earlier complaints about poor service and a chintzy side salad are rectified. A new salad bar provides ample choices and many seem to make this their lunch. Others, like we, enjoyed the soups, the well-​made spring rolls and a variety of other items. The entrees showed both artistic and culinary excellence. The prices are reasonable and the setting, although somewhat spartan, is colorful. The advertised Saturday and Sunday Buffet at $ 15 sounds interesting and we will be back to try it.

I have been back twice since my review and I must say the service has been great as well as their food. I especially enjoyed their lunch specials with free salad/​soup bar because I cannot get enough of the egg rolls and fresh salad selections!

The food is absolutely great. My favorite is the Tom Yum, among other dishes. The atmosphere is really nice; small, quaint, intimate. The servers are pleasant, and do a great job. The choices of wine they have are nice, too. The only complaint I have is the live music. I really don’t see that going anywhere. The music isn’t bad. I just don’t see people going to a great Thai restaurant for live music. It is an expense that needs to go out the door. Other than that, Thai Passion is a great spot to get out with for good food, and good drinks. I hope they make some changes, so that they can get the popularity they deserve. I am writing this after my second time there; once for dinner, and once for Saturday brunch. Give this place a try!

My wife and I love Thai food, unfortunately this place was a bit of a let down — some dishes are good, others horrendously bad.
The curry and fried rice dishes are ok, and fairly tasty.
The seafood dishes are practically inedible; fried mushroom appetizer tasted like eating water — even the sweet chili sauce was watered down.
The wait staff is very friendly, courteous, and wonderful.
Summary of our experience:
My wife and I both ended up getting a seafood dish this last time around and we wanted to walk out at first bite. When we complained they gave us the curry and fried rice dishes which were actually fairly decent.
Long story short, this restaurant may have some very tasty dishes, but it also has some terrible and mediocre ones — be careful what you order if you consider yourself a foodie.

Amazing food! Great lunch buffet

My daughter and I love Thai food and had what we thought was a good place in Cedar Park, but decided to try Thai Passion since were close.
We might never go anywhere else. From the sweet sausage appetizer to the lychee flavored sake to the green curry, larb and sticky rice with mango, everything we had was first class, flavorful and well made.
Our wait staff was attentive without hovering, and when she saw that I had finished eating without finishing my dish, she came over to inquire if there was anything wrong with it (there wasn’t, I was just stuffed at that point). I think it would have been remade if I’d had a problem, but since everything was so good, obviously I can’t say for sure.

This review is based 100% on my personal customer service experience:
Don’t try to use your Community Impact Buy 1 Entrée, Get 1 Free here on Saturday or Sunday! The only exception clearly stated on the coupon is an expiration date. The owner also said that they would not honor a digital coupon, even though it was also not stated on the coupon.
At checkout, the owner just refused our coupon and said that Community Impact Northwest Austin hasn’t corrected their coupon for 4 months, even though they still pay for advertising. I asked him what he would do if we didn’t have enough money to cover the bill and he said, «We are trying to stay open. We have to make money.»
As a business owner, I wouldn’t put money into advertising that didn’t help my business. I was happy to see our favorite Thai restaurant open a north location, but we won’t be back.
It is the responsibility of the owner to make sure that the coupon was taken down 4 months ago when the problem started. He wants to make money and grow his business, but that is not the way to do it! :(

Yuck. Got to-​go food here at 10pm and the place was empty when I went in. The staff was very friendly and I looked forward to enjoying an excellent Thai meal. Unfortunately my wife and I were HUGELY disappointed in the flavor.
1. Gang-​Dang curry: not good at all, I’ve had curry at dozens of thai places and this is by far the worst. Previous reviewers mentioned the curry had a greater «dimension» of flavor. I’m not sure what they meant by that but it was AWFUL. It tasted bland with unfamiliar (and not welcome) undertones. Also the rice that they gave tasted very old and developed this gross texture when you mixed it with the curry.
2. Basal noodles with tofu: Got this based on previous high ratings. Unfortunately it disappointed just as much as the curry. It was just fettuccini noodles. It was way too greasy, and whatever oil they used tasted rotten, we got terrible tastes in our mouth afterwards and just felt greasy and gross.
I’m not sure what went wrong tonight… We expected MUCH better from Austin. :(

Difficult menu decisions.
That’s how it was for us when we were presented with both the lunch and dinner menus when we asked if we could do green curry on yellow curry day. Thank you for doing that. And also allowing us to «Go Dutch» when we were receiving our checks. Something that was explicitly written on the menu as being forbidden (why is that?).
Six of us stopped in for lunch to try out this newly opened Thai spot that moved uptown from their original location. Considering they just opened… they need to quickly hire some more wait staff or restructure their POS system.
That said, the food came out all at once, quickly and hot. And very delicious.
I highly enjoyed the «Dancing Seafood» hot plate with large muscles, squid, scallops, shrimp and mushrooms served in a wonderful Tom-​Yum based sauce over onions and carrots. The entrée came with their Thai soup and salad bar. What a great idea.
I have to mention that this dish is listed as «very spicy» — I asked them to make it mild, which they did, and good thing because if what I had was mild, the regular would have made my face melt off like the ending of Raiders of the Lost Ark.
A co-​worker went with the the jumbo lump crab and shrimp fried rice. And my boss ordered the green curry. Both were highly enjoyed. I can’t wait to try them both. And wow, finally, excellent Thai green curry up here in North West Austin.
The restaurant is very spacious and comfortable. Lots of natural light. Plenty of parking. And a great sounding audio system playing jazz.
I look forward to returning and making this place a regular lunch spot for our office. Keep up the great work!

Just had the buffet today, they provide quite a good selections despite some that I felt out of place such as bacon, breakfast sausage, and eggs (very western for a Thai restaurant)
Soup and other food selections has good and strong flavor. Pad Thai and Pad Ke Mao (pardon the spelling) may turn up to be spicy for others (not for my personal standard but I do like hot stuff). Interesting dessert with rice cake and coconut, taste better when it comes hot n fresh. Overall, it’s good and I would come again

I came in here for dinner last night and it was ok. It wasn’t knock your socks off great and I’ve definitely had better, but it was alright.
We came in and we were seated immediately. The hostess and our waitress were very friendly and helpful. We actually had friends join us at the last minute and they were very accommodating. The restaurant is nicely decorated with statues and green colored walls and they have many tables. It wasn’t very busy when we were there.
Anyways, we ordered the rice balls for an appetizer and they were decent. There was a fresh salad and cucumbers that accompanied the rice balls — with peanut sauce as well as a mildly spicy sauce. They were good.
I ordered the Pud Cashew with Chicken. The veggies were really good, and the sauce was really good. The rice came with a carrot shaped like a heart on it, which was a cute touch. Unfortunately the rice seemed a little overcooked. The chicken in my dish also had an odd flavor to it — where it was poor quality meat or possibly previously frozen and had gotten freezer burned. I wasn’t fond of my dish because of that. It did have plenty of cashews though, they didn’t skimp on those, as some places do.
All in all, three stars for middle of the road here. Good service, decent place but they need to fix their chicken issues. I’d come back for another try.

It’s not often I feel compelled to write negative reviews. For this one I am so appalled by the lunch service we are getting. Yes I’m writing this as I still sit in the restaurant.
Having arrived we got sat promptly. But since then everything has been a slow boat to Thailand! No kidding 10mins for menus, 15 mins for ordering, 20 mins to get someone to come see us about having a groupon.
Funny thing is we ordered from the lunch express menu and an hour in we are still waiting to have our table cleared.
To make it worse the food was just meh! Not the flavourful food I expected from Thai Passion.

Pretty average thai food here. The Pud Thai (not Pad Thai, this one has rice noodles) is pretty good, hard to go wrong with this one! I also had their curry of the day for Monday, which was tasty for the most part, but wasn’t as spicy as the two peppers suggested, and had too much bamboo. Doesn’t come with enough rice either, IMO. You can also have a free small salad, if you’d like, but it’s not anything special, basically just lettuce and peanut sauce. Overall, the food here is acceptable.
But what is terrible here, is the service. Always takes a couple minutes to get seated, despite the place not being very busy. My table was brought rice with the Tom Yum soup for some reason, and then the waitstaff took it back after asking each other if the soup was supposed to come with rice or not. Finally, there was a problem with the check. At first, we got a check for the whole table, so we asked to split it. The waiter offered to split it evenly four ways, but seemed to be reluctant to split it by what was ordered, although we got him to do it anyway. Of course, the check wasn’t split correctly the first time… ugh. The food here isn’t good enough to deal with this level of service.

Seems like they had QUITE a turn around with their service — our server was delightful, polite, and witty. Four of us dined at Thai Passion recently, and we had a GREAT time!
However, the food — 2 of us ordered the larb (minced meat) dish, and it was really bland and kind of dry. The other dishes (and the shrimp rolls!) were okay, but I didn’t experience the explosion of flavor I did the time before. Perhaps it was because we didn’t order there correct dishes this time, but I found myself a little disappointed.
I’ll definitely be back to try and review again. Hoping our mediocre food experience was just a fluke!

I had an extremely crap day at work yesterday and needed a serious dose of comfort food when dinnertime rolled around.
I had read reviews about the slow service here (and even saw their ‘be patient with us’ sign on the wall) but we had zero issues. We hardly waited at all in fact. Got seated right away, they brought water before we even asked, and the food was out in a flash. They were fairly busy so it wasn’t because we were the only table in the place either.
We started with the shrimp spring rolls and the peanut sauce was unlike any I’d had before. It was vinegary and tangy with a bunch of crushed peanuts floating on top instead of being blended into the sauce. We scooped the sauce on the rolls with a spoon so that we could get peanuts in every bite. Yum!
Normally my tester dish at any new Thai place is pad Thai, but I wasn’t feeling it so I ordered pad see ew with tofu instead. The tofu was perfectly cooked, not at all soggy, and the sauce was slightly sweet but when mixed with the table side hot chili paste it was perfect. It also had carrots and broccoli which gave much needed crunch. I loved it.
My husband ordered the Pud kra-​team plik thai stir fry which had onions, garlic, mushrooms, broccoli, celery, cilantro, beef, and a side of rice adorned with the cutest heart ever made from a carrot slice. He cleaned his plate. I wanted to but I made myself save half so that I could eat it for lunch today.
The bill for all that was under $ 30 which is great and they even bring you a few hard tamarind candies to finish off the meal. I had never had one before and surprisingly they were delicious! Next time my Thai craving hits I will want to come back here.

After reading several reviews I knew not to expect good service. After arriving there it was confirmed that we would not receive good service from the flyers that were posted throughout the restaurant. I find that weird and strange, but, at the same time I respect the message they are sending. «We care. We are trying».
This review will not judge the inept poor service. I will say this. My take on this is poor management. There was no manager floating about calling shots or interacting with customers. None that we saw anyway. As other Unilocalers have said, don’t expect good service. Still ironing out the kinks. They are asking for our patience as they do this. So, let’s give it to them. But, for how long?
What you can expect to get here is good food. Fresh, spicy (if you like), and, delicious! We popped in during lunch. They have a pretty decent lunch xpress menu. Shortly after being seated they automatically bring your «salad» which has peanut dressing instead of ginger. It’s lettuce either way, and, it’s fresh and chilled.
Sadly, no cup of soup accompanies the lunch deal. That was a disappointment. We ordered the passion rolls, pasta basil with fresh/​soft tofu very hot, and, the pud ginger with shrimp. The food was freaking delicious. The rolls were vegetarian and didn’t come out greasy. Tasty little boogers they were indeed! I’m not a vegetarian and I loved these rolls.
My partner liked his pud ginger. Now this says a lot. He is the most uncultured eater ever. Seriously. Getting him to go to an Asian restaurant takes a lot of effort. Having him eat everything on his plate and tell me it was good is a fucking miracle! My pasta basil kicked ass! The fettuccine was cooked perfect and that basil was in there people! The onion and peppers were nice and crisp and the spice was spot on! My only complaint is they fucked up on the tofu. I asked for fresh/​soft, they fried it anyway.
I love Thai food and have eaten so much at so many places that I only need to visit a joint once (usually) to know whether or not the kitchen knows what it’s doing. You can bet your sweet ass I’ll be back. Again and again. The food is delicious, fresh and MSG free. I will be patient with the service (one of the waitresses is from Muang Thai) as long as they keep the kitchen on game. I’m glad to have them up North.
**NO MSG**

This Thai Passion location is brand new. Growing pains are to be expected. This is the new location for their original downtown location that recently had to move. The atmosphere is totally different, but the food is just as good as always. I have a special fondness for Thai Passion because it is the first Thai food I ever tried. And now we north siders have our own location. Woohoo…
We were warmly greeted and seated promptly. Our server was attentive and refilled our hot tea often. They did originally bring me the totally wrong food (green curry instead of yellow), but corrected that within several minutes. No big deal. As I said before, this is a new location and they’ve only been open for a couple of weeks. I don’t expect perfection… yet… In a few months, I will.
Update — most recent visit: food was not very good. Apps were ok. Lowering stars to 3. Probably would come here for the rice balls only at this point until they get their staff fully trained :(

E m could have written my review because our experience was almost exactly like hers. we tried thai passion recently during their first week of business at this location. and while there were many missteps in the service and kitchen delivery, when the food finally came out it was truly delicious. i am giving them four stars based on the quality of the dishes — and holding back on rating the service because i think and assume and hope it will get better once they are fully staffed and work out the kinks.
The missteps included there being no hostess at the hostess station to greet us and our having to stand there for several minutes in plain view while we were ignored by the 6 staff members we could see (some of who appeared to not be doing much). we suspected problems when we noticed that of the 12 tables that were seated before us, only one had food. And, of course, the wait once we were seated was a big misstep. While it took a reasonable 2 minutes to receive our thai tea after ordering, we waited 30 minutes for our appetizers — which were cold spring rolls and a bowl of tom kha. Entrees were served at bout the 50 minute mark. And when the entrees arrived, we had to ask for serving spoons and plates.
But all of that being said, the food was really good. Hot foods were served hot, and cold were cold — so I think this was a kitchen problem and not a service problem. the spring rolls were freshly made so the wrappers were soft and flavorful (not ice box cold as some places try to serve them). The tom kha was rich and delicious. The mus man curry, which we had with chicken, was our favorite dish. we also had the thai passion noodles with shrimp, which was less impressive though still tasty.
as i said, my four stars is based on the quality of the food alone — because i believe the service and kitchen kinks will be worked out. the staff we encountered were friendly and apologetic. knowing that they were short staffed, i wish thai passion had considered opening with an abbreviated menu that they could manage because first impressions are so very important and i am afraid that some people will be turned off by this type of first experience.
we’ll be back in a few weeks once they have a chance to settle in — and we expect and hope that the service and kitchen will have stepped up to give this delicious food the respect it deserves.