Lotus Leaf Café

This is our favorite Thai restaurant! I’ve lived in Chicago for 17 years and when I moved here, I thought that it would be difficult to find a good thai restaurant. I was wrong! Lotus Leaf is wonderful!
We love, love, love their drunken noodles, red curry, thai ice tea and chicken spring rolls. Overall, the food is excellent. The staff is great.
We’ve had all of the curries, fried rice, eggplant vegetable stir fry, veggie spring rolls, tiger’s tears, grilled aubergine, spicy crispy tofu, kaprow jae, chicken cashew, tofu soup and chicken and basil. While they’re all delicious, we keep coming back to the drunken noodles and red curries.
One more thing, their desserts are yummy! We love their sticky rice with mangos and fried bananas… NOMNOMNOM!

Decent. Expensive for what you get.
We came on a laid-​back Saturday for lunch. There was barely 10 people in the entire restaurant, all the tables inside were empty, and yet it took more than 30 min before food arrived.
I ordered papaya salad & mango salad. Very fresh, but tiny portions. I also ordered beef and lemongrass chicken. Despite being different dishes, they tasted the same…

Bleh… this place was horrible. The soup I ordered was basically water with noodles in it. There was absolutely no flavor what so ever. My boyfriend’s food was similarly disappointing.
After eating here, we met up with a friend who lives near by and told him of our experience to which he said «You should have called me first!» He said he has eaten here before as well and it was also horrible. I guess it used to be fabulous, but then came the new ownership and there went the flavor…

Food was great! Ordered the summer rolls since others here had mentioned how good they were; enjoyed them but wasn’t bowled over. But the lettuce wraps were spectacular — maybe the best I’ve had. Ordered the Saigon crêpe with pork and while it was delicious, it’s a lot like the lettuce wrap filling, in taste, so probably would have enjoyed trying something else instead. Also shared the ginger chicken, which was awesome — will definitely order that again! Asked for both not spicy, and they weren’t, which also made me happy. My husband ordered the seafood phở and he likes his food a little spicier, so added the condiment they provided and he was very pleased.
Service was very attentive, too. Not very many tables inside, although it wasn’t crowded on the weeknight we were there, but there are actually more tables outside, and it’s nicely decorated out there; am looking forward to going back when the weather is better to sit outside. We definitely will go back.

The place is small, only 8 tables inside and the rest outside. However the panang curry with tofu was amazing! The flavors were just perfect. My dining companions complained they didn’t get enough shrimp or their food wasn’t spicy enough.

Ah ha! I have found my new favorite Thai place!
I ordered the red curry with tofu and the Thai fried rice with tofu. Both were delicious. A dinner entrée can easily feed 2 people and most are under $ 11.00. The curry was nice and spicy and the rice was so filling with tons of fresh vegetables and egg. Only complaint is that the tofu pieces are huge. If they were a bit smaller the meal would come together better. So yummy– writing about Lotus Leaf makes me hungry!

Finally found a great Thai place around here. Nothing fancy but the food is sooo delicious! The prices are reasonable and it’s everything you need.
The red curry was awesome and their fried rice was incredible!

After a few successful visits after my last review, I am happy to say the cuisine has taken a positive turn to this side of delicious!
I like to think my digital hazing sparked a culinary revolution, but let’s be honest. Most likely what we had experienced was a product of staffing issues, bad timing, or some other strange universe-​al combination of bland and boring.
Keep up the good work. See you soon!

I had a hard time getting the «vibe» of this place, but the food more than made up for it. I went with a fairly vanilla menu choice of Pad Thai, and they did an excellent job of it; so much so that it may have been one of the best Pad Thai dishes I’ve had in the triangle. The restaurant has a bit of that «set in a strip mall» feeling to it, but the food more than made up for it.

Ever since I moved from DC I’ve been on the hunt for good basic Thai and Vietnamese food, and I’ve been consistently disappointed. Lotus Leaf, however, brought me back to my favorite neighborhood Thai restaurant.
My BF and I shared the Vietnamese summer rolls, which actually had more vegetable than vermicelli! (The peanut sauce was a little disappointing, but next time I’ll ask for Rooster Sauce.) I also had the green papaya salad which was crispy and tart and spicy.
For dinner I had drunken noodles, which were hot and spicy with lots of veggies. The BF had yellow curry, which was so good he started to eat the sauce with a spoon after he finished the chicken and veggies.
I also liked how fresh everything was. It’s so small that you could hear your dinner being cooked, and know that it was coming straight from the wok to your table.
So psyched to find this place. We’ll be back for sure!

My husband and I were traveling through Cary and found this restaurant and decided to check it out. The food was excellent. We had the vegetarian summer rolls as an appetizer. They were fresh and the peanut sauce was very good. For entrée: the vegetarian «duck» was amazing and the phở was very good as well. Had plenty of food and enough for leftovers.
We will definately stop by again next time we’re in the area.

Decided to check this place out last night because an out-​of-​town guest was in the mood for Thai and Vietnamese. We sat outside since it was a perfect summer evening and the outdoor seating was very comfortable and the décor was nice even for a strip mall place.
We shared some thai spring rolls and vietnamese summer rolls for an appetizer and they were super yummy! Can’t really go wrong there.
I had the chicken phở. The broth was very light yet flavorful. The rice noodles were a bit too al dente for me. However it was a huge portion so I took some home and had it for lunch today and the noodles had softened up a bit. It actually tasted even better today!
My friend had the penang curry. He requested it «thai hot» and the waitress had to double check that he sure was about this but he is into really spicy food so he had no problem eating it and said he really enjoyed it.
Overall the food was good and the service was very attentive. I would definitely come back here.

We stopped in one day for lunch, not wanting the usual fare when Unilocal directed us to a Thai restro near where we were which I’d never run into. Once we found it, I saw why. The place is tucked away back in the corner of a strip mall near a major grocery store. We were lucky to find it.
For Lunch, I thought the food was reasonable. We have not eaten there for dinnner.
We had summer rolls, chicken Satay, I tried the Calamari along with a Pad Talay. We did a sub on one of the dishes and they told us there would be an extra charge which was not unreasonable as I think we were subbing Scallops.
The Calamari was on target, not too chewy so high marks there.
We sat outside and enjoyed the fresh air. Our waitress was very attentive and prompt.
The prices on their main dishes seemed a tad high for the quality and portions served.
The rating reflect comparing them to other Thai /​Pan Asian restros in the area. It’s middle of the road and maybe a little pricey for just middle of the road.
Cheers.

Drunken noodles — very good. Not too much sugar
Fresh summer rolls — very good
Thai style green papaya salad — yum. Missing long beans though :(
Tom yum — very sweet. They went back to adjust it for me.
Larb Gai — yummy. Best I’ve had in triangle. Get I different degrees of heat. I got hot. They still toned it down but lips are burning. Yumm yumm

Since the restaurant we wanted to dine at was closed, we opted to try this nearby place out, despite my not-​so-​secret hesitation. As mentioned before, I *really* dislike pan-​Asian restaurants. They often seem to feature various Eastern cuisines on the menu (you know the one: sushi/​Chinese/​Thai, etc) but can’t manage to get any of them right.
One word: disappointment. Lotus Leaf Café features both traditional Vietnamese and Thai dishes, but the dishes we ordered weren’t good. Very sparse and flavourless noodles in the drunken noodle dish, basil salmon was overcooked and chewy, phở was saccharine– almost to the point of being dessert (?!), and penang curry was watery and bland. Everything seemed to be a pale, lifeless version of what it should have been.
Even though the service was quick and friendly, the food did not live up to expectation. My friend remarked that she could have made a better homemade curry, and I’ve definitely made better pad khee mao myself. This is yet another example of why I’ll stay away from pan-​Asian restos in the area.

For me, this place gets a generous PGFTA[1] rating of 3 stars — as one previous reviewer said «not bad, but not great». But I’m torn… b/​c I would really give this place 1 – 1.5 stars for the food — just based on my previous experience with VN and Thai food. So I’ll just split the difference and call it 2 stars.
We came out here on rainy night with nowhere else to go considering that Bella Mia was closed on Mondays (insert Homer «d’oh») and we had forgotten. Bummer… so we quickly found this place for dinner via the interwebz with our two other friends.
Here’s the low down. It’s located in a small corner of the Northwoods Shopping Center right next to the Food Lion. Outdoor (covered) seating is available, but the inside is very small — prolly on the order of 7ish tables. It’s a tight squeeze.
As my wife commented, it’s generally a good rule of thumb to just shy away from restos that claim to do pan-​Asian fare. This place was pretty much the rule of thumb with the 4 dishes we shared (family style). The menu itself was a mix of VN (1 page on the menu) and predominantly Thai (the other 8 pages of menu). What did we order? A fried veggie spring roll app, a drunken noodle dish with chicken, a tofu penang curry, a VN beef phở (regular, not «extra authentic») and one of the specials of the day — crispy fish with basil. My main complaint about the overall meal was that everything was just too saccharine for my taste — almost to the point of being inedible on some dishes.
The veggie spring rolls were fried and really just alright — my wife commented that she had a small piece of meat in her portion… so, not exactly veggie friendly, but oh well we’re beyond that now. The drunken noodle dish was just alright as well — I’ve had better here in the Triangle. It was tasty, but just seemed a bit off for this dish — not quite right. There also wasn’t a nice mound of noodles you expect when ordering this dish — it just seemed skimp in the noodle dept. The crispy fish had a last minute change and they asked if it would be alright to substitute salmon instead. We agreed… and while the fish was dried out, the sauce and the crispy fried basil leaves were pretty good. I’m afraid to say that I didn’t enjoy the phở as much — we were given the choice of «regular» (meat only) or «extra authentic» (with tendons and tripe). I usually like the tendon and tripe, but we chose the safer route. The VN beef phở was sweeter than I would have liked. My first thoughts out loud were «Are these guys Laotian?» The only time I’ve ever had phở this sweet is with a Laotian friend and her boyfriend — both of whom added sugar directly to their phở. Now, mind you, I’m not much a fan of that, but to each their own, right? Well, in this case I found the broth pretty flavorful, just cloyingly sweet — almost «dessert-​like» as one of our friends said. Besides that, the usual accoutrement of sprouts, basil leaves, lime, and cilantro were lacking (or already put into the soup)[2]. Else, the penang curry was prolly the worse dish for me. I found it sweet and watery[3] with an overpowering licorice (anise seed) flavor to the whole dish. It totally wasn’t jiving with me. I also found the fried tofu in the dish hard and over-​fried.
I hate to say it, but I wasn’t a huge fan of this dinner and this first impression didn’t win me over completely. I might try it out again if I’m in the area… or maybe for lunch which brings me to one of my biggest complaints — the price. I just found it (for what we got) very chintzy and mediocre. The phở was $ 11. That’s almost ridiculous since you can get it elsewhere for $ 7−8…but more so considering that no one at the table really enjoyed it. So, I’d prolly only come back for lunch here in the hopes of escaping with a cheaper bill.
BOTTOM LINE: This meal was not worth the $ 70+ (including tip) we paid for 4 dishes and a shared app (no drinks). I might only consider this place again for lunch, but not dinner at these prices.
[1] «Pretty Good for the Area»
[2] Again, wasn’t a fan of that since the fresh veggies kind of lose their elasticity when they sit in the soup for too long!
[3] Mind you, I’ve had good brothy curries before (i.e., Northern Thai-​style), but this was not the case here.

Got lunch here on the fly before a speaking gig in Cary and as I pulled into the parking lot a wave of nostalgia (or was it awkward remembrance?) swept over me. I’d dined here before. On a Craigslist date. The guy was Vietnamese and had highly recommended it; we had wine, I think I had a lemongrass dish. He’d even brought me a bouquet of flowers — on an internet date! But he wasn’t my type, so I ducked out after with a lame excuse about needing to walk the dog and didn’t return later phone calls. I guess I pushed my memory of this restaurant out the door by lumping it in with rejection of my awkward early 20s dating life.
Anyway. Onto the now. There are lunch specials at around $ 7 – 8 that include a side salad or soup. But the offerings were of the pad thai variety. And I really wanted to try something from the Viet menu… 8 pages past Thai dishes later, I found the one page of Vietnamese offerings. My waitress suggested the crêpe and I followed her advice. Not disappointing. Generous portion with a light coconut flavor, stuffed to the brim with meat and shrimp (though the shrimp were the dinky ones) and onions. It was nice to try something new for a change; but I think I’m really more of a phở or a lemongrass dish girl when you get down to it. Eating a crêpe felt a little more appetizer-​like to me even given the size. While the food was fairly tasty, I’m taking them down a star for not serving more equal parts Thai and Viet.
My favorite part about this restaurant is the indoor/​outdoor patio — it’s covered and the décor makes it feel as though you’re inside, but you can still enjoy the fresh air of being outdoors. Perfect for today’s weather and I would have spent the whole afternoon there if I didn’t have another place to be.

I only got to try the coconut sweet rice with mango the the Vietnamese coffee. We got in just as they were about to close between lunch and dinner. Also be aware that it is not open on Sundays.
I’ll definitely come back to check it out– it seems like it has a lot of potential.
Very cute décor and friendly staff.

I was lucky to catch them before they closed up for the night.
I had a delicious Thai ‘endless seafood’ entrée. I asked for extra spicy, then started kicking it up with the fresh Thai peppers. The seafood was fresh, the veggies crisp and the broth was amazing.
It really added to the ambiance being able to sit outdoors to enjoy the meal, instead of being couped up inside. This place would be amazing on a hot summer night with the live music.
Friendly service too! I really enjoyed my visit.

Being able to walk to this restaurant from the house probably gives me reason to add a ½ star to this review. Also, they have outdoor seating which is always very nice to find in Cary, esp for a Asian-​themed restaurant.
I really enjoy all of their vegetarian dishes. it’s nice to eat healthy when you want to and not sacrifice on taste or portion size.
They have a flavored ice tea that’s to die for, but it’s pay by the glass, so careful on refills!
The wait staff is extremely friendly. Very low-​key environment, and some evenings they even have live jazz music. An excellent walking date with the wife.