Lotus Cafe

Came for dinner on our last day of the big island vacation. 4 star Unilocal rating was the reason I wanted to try this location.
The ambience of the place is decent, although a bit too dark for my taste. No general lighting in the place except light fixtures over each table. The first thing they told us was that there credit card machine wasn’t working– so cash only, which is a bummer. Then we proceeded to order and I requested the chicken sate ayam– and they were out. Another bummer.
We had Thai green curry with chicken which was good. Summer rolls with chicken were meh… I had plenty better. So a below average place for me. May be worth a one time try, but I won’t be coming back!

My husband and I had our first meal in Kona here and were really surprised at the unique and fresh take this Thai food is. It’s definitely not your traditional American-​style thai joint — it is much less heavy handed and much more inclusive of the veggies. If you’re not into that, you won’t like it. But we really enjoyed the variety they offered and ate here twice! Let’s see, in total we had a combo plate that included green papaya salad, steamed sticky rice and chicken; grilled eggplant with chili garlic sauce; thom kha soup with chicken; and vietnamese banh xeo with veggies.
None of it was too rich and any use of coconut was careful and not over the top. We liked all of them, but I personally liked the vietnamese banh xeo crêpe dish the least. It seemed to be too watery that made the crepes soggy — and the sauce itself had too much soy sauce. Other than that, this place provided a couple of very fresh and nourishing meals! Prices are a little more than what you’d pay for thai on the mainland, but hey, that’s Hawaii for ya.

Came to the big island for ten days, and I don’t prefer hotel food… Came here on day 4, and it was by far the best food on the island. Reasonable prices, a block from Costco, and fast service.
We were a little worried as the place shares space with a bunch of commercial businesses. The ambiance leaves something to be desired, but the food and employees made up for it. We got 5 entrees to go so we would have lots of leftovers. It was all good!

Their menu consists of mostly local ingredients which they transform into amazing food.
I had the Rad Na, a dish I have had at many restaurants. It was very good with a good portion of a variety of vegetables. At our table, our group had chicken curry, a fish dish, and a (HUGE!) salad. There were no complaints.
If I lived here, I’d eat here a lot.

Don’t let the location fool you. The food is very good and service is friendly. And inside atmosphere comfortable. The spring rolls came with a chili dip which was mild and flavorful. They also come with a peanut dip which was sweet and tasty. The soup was both aromatic and the sweet and spicy you expect. We ordered it as a 3 on the spicy scale. We also enjoyed the chicken pad Thai and chicken fried rice dishes. Both were very good as well. We tried the gelato and a decadent almost raw chocolate pie. Overall very pleasant. Would have received 5 stars but a few menu items were unavailable which were of course the ones we wanted to try. We will be going back.

The laksa is a dream … lots of fresh and beautiful organic veggies (kabocha, broccoli, cabbage, carrots, bean sprouts) over rice noodles and a curry that is making me salivate now just thinking about it. A perfectly balanced and full-​of-​flavor laksa. I also appreciated that they make all of their own sauces and curries right there. It’s a vegan (with locally farmed/​raised meat options), organic and gluten-​free resto that really impresses.

I love this place! Found it through Unilocal,and I liked the service. We had the special which was the mango curry— amazing! You actually get pieces of mango in it along with the vegetables. We are vegetarians, and they could make anything vegetarian. We also had the pad Thai as well, yummy. I would definitely recommend this place to anyone. Wouldn’t recommend the smoothies though– sort of bland.

After reading all of the mixed reviews this is what I can tell you. It is not your traditional Thai restaurant. Their focus is all locally grown, vegetarian, etc food. So that in itself makes this particular thai restaurant unique. I actually quite like what I have eaten both at their food truck and in the restaurant. I have definitely had hit or miss items here however the items that I do enjoy are the reasons I continue to come here. It is extremely healthy in the way that they prepare there food. When the item has been bad, its been really bad. I cannot say much good about the service. Its pretty nonexistent honestly, which can be frustrating. Definitely do not go if you are expecting good service.
They honestly seem like a group of vegetarian, health conscious people that opened a decent Thai restaurant without ever having worked in a restaurant themselves. They just need to be little more business smart with the service.

Have always wanted to try Lotus Café and so I went out of my way to get there. After speaking with the counter person I ordered Rad Na, a Thai rice noodle dish with cabbage, broccoli, carrots, green beans etc. It sounded wonderful. Because I needed to get to my office I placed a to go order. They charged me 5% or $ 0.80 additional for the to go container.
I drive the 10 minutes to my office, opened the container to find gummy sticky noodles with a couple of thinly sliced carrots and a few green beans. No cabbage, no broccoli. Definitely not worth the money I spent. I’ll stick to TK’S Noodle House in the future.

Happen upon this place after our Costco run. This a gem of a place, and everything is yummy on this menu. We were a party of 8, so we got to try a large array of dishes! Totally unassuming place, but you won’t be disappointed!

My order — Veg pad thai, veg green curry.
Taste — The best thai food I have ever tasted. The green curry was made from fresh coconut and organic vegetables. The basil addition was just perfect in the dish. Usually the green curry which I had tasted so far had way too much basil in them.
Pad thai too tasted good and fresh.
Vegans/​Vegetarians will go nuts for this place!
Cost — $ 30 for 2 people.
Staff and service — Friendly and quick!
Do not miss this place!

No good value for money. This hole-​in-​the-​wall restaurant charged us the price of a three-​dollar sign restaurant yet the food portion was pathetically small — 10 tiny chicken pieces in my large bowl of green curry. No doubt the Thai flavour was authentic — that is applaudable since many Thai foods in SF Bay Area are either too sweet or rich. It probably serves organic food as it claims on the menu, but many other eateries in the Big Island serve organic foods anyway since they source their fresh ingredients from Waimea in the North. Just not worth the price.

I cannot tell you how absolutely great this place is. This place has never compromised on quality since the day it opened. I used to come here regularly just after it opened years ago. I recently returned to Kona for a visit after many years since moving away. This place was the first place I wanted to go back to. I was not disappointed in the least. I love the owners and all the workers. Thank you Lotus Café.

We stopped by this place and found it to be quite good! The food was tasty and their smoothies are unique and very flavorful. I ordered vegetable fried rice with tofu and their special sauce! Very good! The only negative was that their one staff member was not the friendliest but we got her to smile and it turned out ok!

Soooo delicious. Ingredients are fresh, sauces have layers of flavors. My husband can always get his «thai hot» here while I can keep it mild to share with the baby. And the vegan gelatos can’t be missed! Make sure to save room.

I ate here about two months ago with my boyfriend. We were so disappointed with the food that I still remember it two months later and finally remembered to jump onto Unilocal and write a review.
I prefer eating vegan, organic and gluten-​free food, so this place seemed perfect. The food was bland and oily. The noodles were stuck together and mushy. I’ve never had such tasteless thai food. Our pad thai was unrecognizable, didn’t look like any pad thai I had ever had. I asked our server to make sure we got the right order and she assured us rudely that it was the pad thai. That’s fine if it is done differently here, but if we just want to double check we got the right order, we shouldn’t be met with a rude response.
We left with a bad taste in our mouths, literally. Rude service. bad food.

Came here for lunch with the boyfriend, his mom, his sister, and his sister’s friend (both teenagers). We were allowed to choose our seats once we entered, the restaurant seems to also sell furniture! It was incredibly tempting to mozzie on over to that section and browse, but I restrained myself. I didn’t have to for long as our food promptly arrived. My boyfriend and I split a green papaya salad, coconut soup with chicken (which wasn’t on the menu, but our server had no qualms about getting it done for us, awesome!), and the chef’s special tasters. This included three dishes served in small portions with a portion of your choice of rice. One dish was fish with a sweet mango/​citrus sauce with cut up carrots, cabbage, and diced avocado. The other was a hearty, spicy dish with coconut milk, chicken, and veggies. The third included shrimp, vegetables, and the sauce or marinade it was in was very light, but seemed to have notes of either chili or paprika (I don’t even know if Thai cuisine uses paprika). All three were a great exploration of the huge variety in Thai cooking! We had a blast eating our way through them. I wish I could make mention to what everyone else had, but as you can tell I was enthralled with our order. I highly recommend checking out Lotus Café, it has a comfortable, casual setting, and there’s great furniture to oogle at.

Excellent and flavorful are the key words to this restaurant. I’ve been coming here everyday for lunch, I couldn’t get enough. Fresh ingredients you can taste and the flavors are right on. And if you like it spicy ask for Thai spicy and you’ll be in spicy heaven. Highly recommend this place.

While at a farmers market south of Kona, we happened upon the café’s food truck. I talked to one of the owners. He was helpful and friendly. I told him the café was on my dining list while in the area and that we would soon check it out. A few days later, we did. Loved it! It is tucked away from downtown Kona. The dining environment is pleasant and casual. My husband and I shared a Burmese salad. I can’t remember what was in it, but it was incredible. Truly incredible. It would have been a meal for one. It was actually a lot for us to share as a salad, but we managed. I had vegan pad Thai, which was excellent. And I finished it all with a vegan coffee gelato. Heaven on a plate.

This place is awful! I would give it a negative rating if I could…
We got the following menu items.
Tom Yam Ono: No flavor, hardly anything to the soup, there was one little piece of ginger, a few slices of carrots, a couple sliced cherry tomatoes and 4 very small pieces of Ono that were tough and flavorless. The small bowl was $ 6.95! Total ripoff.
Vegetarian Wide Rice Noodles: This dish included a small hand full of vegetables, not even worthy of mention… a clump of flavorless slimy noodles in the middle (couldn’t even grab the noodles with a fork because they slipped right off) all in a thick brown sauce. Don’t know what the sauce was but once again, no flavor. Oh, and did I mention there were bugs in the noodles! Gross!
Vegetarian Eggplant Dish: A few pieces of eggplant in a thin gray sauce with a hand full of assorted veggies. No flavor.
Overpriced and flavorless!
Not to mention the unfriendly staff.
If you want excellent Thai food visit the Spoonful Café in Keaau!
We ended up going to Costco to get pizza for dinner…
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