Mema Thai Chinese Cuisine

We ordered the seafood green curry, chicken pad ped and spicy sweet and sour dish. Unfortunately, the eggplant was a bit rotten, but our waitress was kind enough to offer to exchange the dish. Although I love local restaurants, unfortunately, the quality and taste of our meal did not meet take out standards, and the flavor lacked the authenticity I was looking for. Also, this place is expensive, even when compared to some of the more lavish restaurants around the island.

Good food. We were in a hurry, and the hostess accommodated us by getting our food out quickly and getting us boxes to package up leftovers. Her manner was a bit brusque, but as long as the food is good and plentiful, that was no big deal.

Came here while on vacation in Kauai and we loved it. We ordered pad thai, yellow curry, and the tom kha soup — they were all good. The service was a little slow at first but not terrible. The server was more attentive at the end of the meal.
If you like spicy food don’t worry about ordering it hot. Medium was not spicy enough but they had good chili pepper water and paste right at the table so it was easy to make it as spicy as we wanted. The portions were huge and easily enough for two meals.

I was so excited about Mema, and I wish it were better.
I love Thai food.
I love Chinese food.
I’m wary of restaurants that try to multitask, and Mema is a perfect example. It’s American Authentic (pretty bland,) and with a little more focus on the food it could be better, but that’s where the authentic part kicks in (unfortunately.) It’s a little like restaurants in Asia where you have to reach out to the servers and ask for food.
It’s a good deal, and you will like it if you have never had good Asian food before. If it’s daytime, try Anata Thai a few blocks away in the Ace Hardware parking lot. It’s a lot better (but not open nights and has limited seating.)
Oh Kauai, how can you have so many bland restaurants with so many Asian people living here??? (Good luck finding Chinese food, there’s no good spots on island.)

As other reviewers mentioned, the lack of hostess or indication to seat yourself is a rough start. Employees busily pass you and do not direct you to sit. It took a while for us to just interject and ask. The gal told us to grab menus and sit. They were out of a few items we wanted (also mentioned by others) and it was only a little after 2pm. I’ll feel bad for dinner-​goers at this rate! Food was ok, red curry was the win. Did not care for spring roles or the laab salad – both very dry and seemed over cooked. If not starving, I’d find another joint nearby for lunch.

Driving by my family saw «Thai Chinese». We wanted some local take out. Stopped in, saw the food in the display case (the veggies were over cooked), ordered and left. Disappointed that all the choices were only Filipino, nothing Thai or Chinese. Came home and read the reviews here, and found that we should have ordered off the menu.

Ordered to go. Got to hotel and the food was not good at all. The stir fried egg plant and basil was in a soup, certainly not stir fried. The chicken labb salad was dry. The chicken was mixed with something, maybe rice powder. It also was not spicy. Why are people gave such great reviews.

Mema is mostly just a thai place, I didn’t really see much Chinese food on the menu. I had tofu pad thai and the sauce and noodles were good, but the tofu tasted sour like it had been expired for a little bit. My stomach didn’t feel well after, and it’s entirely possible that this was an isolated incident, but this place didn’t make me feel well after. Keep a wary eye out.

Excellent food for a good price.
My husband got their Mema’s curry with shrimp and calamari for an appetizer. He loved it. I have never heard him rave so much about every aspect of a meal. He is hugely picky about textures so was nervous about the calamari and the shrimp but said they were both cooked perfectly.
I got the yellow curry with tofu. The tofu was cooked well and wasn’t mushy or super chewy and the potatoes were just the way I like them.
The only thing we both noticed was we got hot and neither of us found it as spicy as we’d like. That said I grew up on green chile and he likes things that make most people sweat. I would say if you’re used to spicy you could probably ask if they could amp up the spice since if guess they tone it down for the average taste buds.

An average 3.5 because of some unevenness and issues. As others have noted, some things are confusing. The name says «Thai Chinese» — however, there really isn’t any Chinese food. It isn’t fusion, either. There’s a sit-​down Thai restaurant with a fairly long menu, and pre-​made Filipino fast food you order at a counter for take out or eat in. When we entered, there was one woman behind the counter helping a customer with the Filipino food. We weren’t greeted, and there were no signs. After standing there awhile, we found the menus for the Thai food under the counter. We started looking for a table and were finally directed as to where to sit.
When we were finally waited on (by the woman doling out the Filipino food), we wanted stuffed chicken wings and garlic pork, but we’re informed they were out of both. We settled for vegetarian spring rolls, pad thai with chicken, yellow chicken curry, green pork curry, fried rice, and white rice.
The spring rolls were billed as «four» but were really two each cut in half. The wrappers were blistered and the rolls sat in a puddle of grease. They were okay, but the sauce was watery. I liked the fried rice, and thought the pad thai was okay, albeit skimpy on the chicken.
But the stars of the meal were the curries. They were fragrant and tasty. The mild yellow curry was loaded with chicken, potato, and onion. The medium green curry had ample pork, eggplant, and basil. Medium is not terribly hot. (You get your choice of vegetarian, meat, or shrimp, and heat level.) All the portions were generous and we had leftovers to bring home. Had to leave much of the curry sauces, sadly, because TSA considers them to be liquids and makes you throw them out when you go through security at the airport.
Many locals came in for the Filipino food, which is a good sign. But for those of us who don’t live on Kauai we could do with some signs and greetings. It’s a small business and I appreciate they work very hard, but they really need a second person in front at peak times, or maybe they also need to convert the sit-​down Thai to pre-​made takeout also.
It’s located centrally in Lihue, near the old theater and Shell station. Parking in a side lot or in back.

Such a great meal! We are here visiting and eat Thai food all the time back home! We found it and had to give it a try. We had pad Thai, yellow curry, and shrimp spring rolls! It was all sooo good!

Ate here for dinner and it was delicious. Pad Thai was very good and the mema’s curry dish was excellent as well — it tasted a lot like panang curry. I would totally eat here again. Only negative was that they don’t have pad kee mao.

After a long day of kayaking, we were in the mood for Tom ka soup. I Unilocaled Mema
Thai and trusted that the reviews were true. Man, I am so glad they were!!! we took the 20 min drive from Kapaa… Soooo worth it! Tom Ka Soup, papaya salad, and yellow curry were the best I have ever had! Anybody coming to Kauai should definitely visit!!! Also, great service :)

Best meal we had on the island! Hawaiian food and plate lunches can be greasy and heavy, plus many restaurants are fusion type places and don’t taste authentic. Thus place is the real deal. We eat a lot of Thai food in California, and Mema Thai is soooo good. We had the red curry, beef with basil, and chicken pad thai. All good, but the curry was outstanding. Great blend of spices, bamboo shoots, and coconut milk– thick and delicious!
Service was wonderful and attentive. They accidentally made us chicken instead of beef basil. When I asked for them to just give us a side of beef, they insisted on making us a new beef dish and comped the chicken. Large portions, cheap by Kauai prices — food trucks will charge the same! Wash your meal down with homemade Thai tea — only $ 1.50 — perfect!

This place is pretty good, very large portions which is really nice for bigger groups. My husband and I had the pad Thai and the pineapple fried rice. I really liked the pineapple fried rice, the pad Thai didn’t have much flavor. The service was ok, the summer rolls were my favorite thing.

Came here at around 6:30PM based on the high reviews on Unilocal and was looking for a change since all we have been eating was Hawaiian grinds… Once we were seated with no one else in the restaurant, we took a few minutes to place an order of chicken fried rice and a noodle/​veggie dish. 15 min passes by, 30 min comes up and our server informs us they ran out of white rice… WHITE RICE??? C’mon now! How the heck do you run out of white rice at dinner time, in a Asian restaurant? We finally agreed to changing to brown rice. 15 more minutes passes by before we are served our fried rice. After another 20 minutes, we get our noodle dish… So it basically took over 60 minutes to get our complete order and the food was ok… The fried rice was overwhelmed with green peas and the noodle dish was not hot. Not sure how the reviews were so high when we were not satisfied with the food and service…

Had Pad Thai, Pork Adobo, Pineapple Fried Rice, & Dinuguan! Soooooo F’ing good! I was a bit skeptical when I walked in but the food was definitely delicious.

When i first walked in, it was a bit confusing because there was no one to greet us so i looked around and asked out loud if we were supposed to seat ourselves. Someone told us we had to ring the bell for service. How was i to know there was a bell amongst the jumble of items atop of the buffet serving station still filled with unappetizing Filipino food that looked like it was sitting there for a long period of time. I felt like things were going to end on a sour note if we dined here but i was determined to have Thai food so i grudgingly kept my mouth shut and sat myself after letting one of the workers know they had customers.
We sat ourselves and waited for our server. She was friendly but wasn’t too knowledgeable about the menu. Ahhhh… my expectations for the food was getting lower and i was getting more and more disappointed. After we ordered, it was just a short wait on the food. Luckily, the food was a game changer for me. The fried calamari, was delicate and crisp, the papaya salad was a ‘meh’, the pork laab was bursting with flavor and the red curry fragrant and very tasty. The server was very attentive throughout the meal. Portions are huge so be prepared to share. If not for the confusion in the beginning and the server’s lack of menu knowledge, and the unappetizing buffet setup of cold looking Filipino food, i would have given this restaurant 5 stars. Based on the food alone, I’ll most likely return to dine again because i am now a fan of their red curry.

So glad we went on our first night in Kauai and not our last, as we need to find time to go back to Mema. We went on a Sunday night, slightly after normal dinner time and the place was crowded with more locals than tourist.
They had just run out of Spring Rolls, so we will need to go back for those as they looked incredible, so we ordered the Shrimp & Tomato Satay.
The satay was delicious and would have been even better with summer tomatoes.
For dinner we order the house curry with chicken that we wound up slurping with spoons out of the bowl long after the chicken was devoured. The coconut with garlic was also very good, however it would have gone better with pork rather than the chicken we ordered to go with. We also had Shrimp Pad Thai which was also very good.

I enjoyed Mema as my last meal before leaving Kauai. Its proximity to the airport makes it a perfect last stop.
I ordered the summer roll w/​chicken and the red curry, hot, with chicken. The summer rolls (rice wrap, not deep fried) were huge, stuffed with fresh vegetables, the perfect amount of chicken, and a delicious peanut dipping sauce. The red curry was plenty spicy hot but not quite as spicy hot as I like my Thai food. The curry flavor was very good and the portion size was ample.