Sam Cafe

Sam’s is probably my favorite restaurant in Merced and I’m surprised it’s not packed regularly because the food is fantastic and the atmosphere is great. Sam is a very personable host and treats you like you’re his family.
My lady and I have been here probably 25+ times and for me, the combination Pad Thai (heat level 6) is my go-​to dish. The menu is vast and everything is delicious. Service is fast and everyone is attentive to your needs, and the prices are budget friendly too.
For lunch or dinner, Sam Café is an excellent choice!

Very nice food and reasonable portions for good price. We had roast duck, massaman curry (spice level 8) and romp kha gay soup (8 too). All food came together, but that was not a problem. The soup was a real portion and we were able all together. Next time I would go for level 10, but I really like real spicy food.

Always a safe bet. Combo Padthai is the way to go. Offers varied spice level…1−10. Also does take out which is good for a busy professional.

Use to love sams. But honestly something has changed. It just doesn’t have the same Sam flair anymore. I mostly eat it at the uc campus now which is bland and oily. I can only hope the restaurants quality hasn’t been compromised as well… things to try though: panang. Pad thai. And get it spicy

Super sketchy neighborhood but the food was DELICIOUS & AUTHENTIC!!! Great stop for lunch if you are headed to/​from Yosemite to the Bay Area.
[FOOD]
— Imperial Roll (³⁄₅): Comes in 4 and sweet peanut dipping sauce. They are smaller than the Vietnamese spring rolls but with very similar ingredients (shrimp, vermicelli, lettuce, etc). These rolls tasted a bit dry, but good portion size for appetizer.
— Pad Thai (⁵⁄₅): RECOMMEND! Comes with fresh bean sprouts and peanut crumbles on the side. The noddles were very chewy and the sauce had the perfect balance of sweetness and savory. One of the best Pad Thai I’ve had. Very healthy.
— Pad Kyee Maw (³⁄₅): Good balance of vegetables, meat, and rice noodles. We asked for ²⁄₁₀ spicy level, which still gave the dish a hint of spiciness but it wasn’t anything unbearable. They might have added a bit too much soy sauce, because the dish tasted pretty salty to us.
— Mango Chicken Fried Rice (⁴⁄₅): Good portion size and amount of protein. They may have added a bit too much grounded pepper because the dish smelled extremely smoked. Could have added more mango and cut back on the oil, but overall a still great tasting dish!
[SERVICE]
— We came for lunch on a Sunday and the restaurant was pretty empty. The inside is pretty big and looked very authentic, and there is a section decorated for special occasions (ex. wedding, parties, etc). We had to wait a good 15 – 20 minutes for food. The food was delicious though. The waiter was very nice and looked very kind.
[OVERALL]
— One of the best Thai food I’ve had! Great food and experience. This will now be my to-​go pit stop whenever I go to Yosemite.

Good chow mein and pad thai. Unilocal did it right by us again in recommending this hole in the wall. Three of the family members room care to make us feel well served and the food came out hot. I found the panang a little too rich to eat in one sitting but the meal was super yummy and the sticky rice came out in cute little single serve baskets. The only downside was the strip mall looks real shabby.

After finding Sam’s in September of 2015 we are still visiting there once and a while. Granted my last several visits were far more frequent than normal.
Sam’s is still awesome. I have recently found my new favorite, the yellow chicken curry. I actually get it without onions and a 0 spice level, it’s almost like a soup sometimes and I find it wonderful. Every time it hits the spot. I also order sticky rice and find it to be a good compliment to the curry.
We’ve also ordered the calamari and chicken satay and wow, so much yum factor. Their sodas and drinks are always nice and cold, and don’t taste watered down.
Depending on the time you visit Sam’s can usually be found to be relaxing and quiet. I don’t like to eat around a lot of people in general and having a nice quiet meal is appreciated. The servers here have been attentive and it can seem like we’re waiting a couple minutes for a drink refresh, but nothing out of the norm. We’ve never noticed them to be below service levels, other than a little slow sometimes.
We still absolutely love this place.

Difficult to rate tonight’s experience. Food was great, but service was almost non existent.
Started off good, drink orders, appetizer ordered then the three of us were only brought plates/​flat wear and napkins for 2…
Entrée orders taken and we still needed to ask for extra set up for the third… after that no one ever came by… no water refills, no «how is everything» heck we had finished eating and waiting a while before finally giving up and walking to them to pay.
the Food was great… fresh rolls, spicy shrimp, sticky rice, fried rice, a curry and some noodle dish were ordered and all thoroughly enjoyed.

Went here for lunch today. Food was good I like the Combo Pad Thai and the extra spiciness to it added to the flavor. The thing that I hope is improved is customer service. Two individuals of our group had to wait for their food and supposedly they were «forgotten» and asked to «speak up». The server took their orders so the assumption is that they would get their meal at the same time as every one else. It makes absolute sense for the server to check up on the customers to see if everyone has received their meal. The restaurant was not even busy during the specific time I went.

I was on a work trip with my 5 other co-​workers down for a presentation in Fresno. Then all of a sudden HUNGRY hit us. So I went to my trusty Unilocal app and found Sam Café. I being half Chinese am not afraid of a good hole in the wall. Which I do have to say the area that Sam Café is in — is not the most aesthetically pleasing area but hey were in Merced. What do you expect?
Safe to say the bosses along with co-​workers let me do the ordering and we had an awesome lunch stop on our way to Fresno.

There are some Thai food places where the entrees come out dry and even after dousing the food with sauces, it doesn’t taste much better than some carbonate dipped in sauce. This place is far from one of those places!
I ordered a chicken Pad Thai and my friend got a pineapple fried rice to go with sweet and sour sauce and vinegar on the side. Both dishes were super tasty and moist. The total price was barely over $ 20 and portion size was good enough for us to have some leftovers.
Sam was such a funny guy who greets all his customers with a cute little smile (:. We chatted for a minute and he definitely helped make my hanger dissipate! He even took an extra glance at the food to make sure there were no peanuts since my friend is severely allergic. I would definitely recommend anyone drop by if passing through the area!

Ate at Sam Thai again. Such a pleasure. Pad Thai was perfect. Medium spicy was great ⁵⁄₁₀ on the spicy scale. Might have to try a little spicier but so many things to choose from I probably won’t get back to Pad Thai for awhile. Can’t wait to try some curry. Keep up the good work.

So bomb, sketchy neighborhood and strip mall but this hole in the wall is legit.
The owner walks around talking with patrons and taking special orders or doing modifications to meals. But – Thai spicy means Thai spicy so don’t be surprised by the heat.

After eating at several Thai restaurants in Merced. This place it my fav. Not with most restaurant s when it comes provocation. But nas it when it comes to authentic Thai cuisine.

Great food. Reasonable prices. I am not able to stand much in the way of heat but this place really works with anyone. Even people like me.
The owner is amazing. He remembers your name, your order and actually cards about the community and his customers.
The restraunt itself is clean and feels friendly as soon as you walk in. Not alot of places can manage that. This place is a must.
The combo pad thai is amazing!

We got takeout at Sam Café and it was really good! I had Chicken Prik King over steamed rice, which was a good amount of spicy for me. The sauce was a bit thinner than I would have expected, but the chicken was cooked to absolute perfection and really absorbed all the flavors nicely. The vegetable spring rolls we ordered were also really good, even though I was skeptical at first glance because they were thinner and less flaky than I am accustomed to, the flavor was perfect and they tasted lighter. The takeout was pretty quick and only took about 15 minutes from when we called in a large order.

This place was super yummy. My husband had the pad tai and he loved it. I had the Tom Yum Gong soup, it was good just a little too spicy. I would of given this place a 5 star had my spring roles had more substance to it, rather than just too much lettuce and less noddles or shrimp. My friend also orders the phở and said it was amazing!
The restaurant is a hole in the wall, so don’t expect it too be super glamorous, however, expect to have some tasty food.
The owner was nice, he came and talked to our table and told us he was from Los Angeles. I thought that was a nice gesture.

I have never seen food come out of a kitchen so fast and it was super hot so I know they made it fresh. We had the shrimp fresh rolls, pad see ew, thai iced coffee and not a single complaint.
The owner was very present in the restaurant and I saw him visit every table before thanking both myself and the other customer waiting for to go orders.
While I was waiting the biggest bowl of soup I have ever seen was carried by and if I lived in town I would go back to try that (with a small army) and enjoy the warm and hospitable environment.

In the bay area, Thai restaurants are a dime a dozen, so if you don’t like one you go on to the next. In Los Banos/​Merced, I assumed good Thai would be so much harder to find so I scoured Unilocal vetting a good Thai place for my Thai mother in law — no pressure, right?
Sam’s Café was where I landed. All the good signs were there: lots of reviews, star status, Thai family owned restaurant, and lastly, Asian reviewers – sorry, but for an Asian joint, that’s key. Wow, Sam did not disappoint. Not only was he and his wife extremely friendly, their food was so… Soulful! Every dish was well balanced in spice, sweet, sour, freshness. Alllll 5 stars!!! I really wish Sams Café was in the bay area. I’m totally jealous. Maybe I’ll consider going back to school to uc Merced, it was that good. We got level 5 spiciness and I didn’t think it was spicy at all. So next time, and there will definitely be a next time, I’ll kick up the spiciness a bit. Thanks for everything, Sam! And thanks for being so nice to my mother in law! We had a great time!
We ordered beef salad and papaya salad – both were amazing, egg rolls for my non seafood eating husband, kao soi, larb, yum and sticky rice. Bests dishes were the salads. The sticky rice was perfect. The service was also perfect.

i was at my Friends Slab in Merced at a «HATE» «PARTY» and decided to go out for Thai .
So we jumped in my Friends Whip and rolled to Sams Café .
Sams is located in a Strip Mall so we had plenty of parking to choose from. So we parked right in front .
We rolled in and grabbed a Table.
A few minutes later a Waitress dropped off some menus for us to Peruse.
I ordered the Combination Pad Thai –Very Spicy !!!
We ordered Spring Rolls for an Appetizer .
I also ordered a Thai Ice Tea .
The Spring Rolls arrived a few minutes later with a Peanut Dipping Sauce .
It was very Tasty. The Rolls were Nice and Crisp.
5 Minutes Later my Combination Pad Thai showed up. It was nice and Spicy and very Flavorful. Very Fresh ingrediants.
I would eat at Sams again .
Ours Server was Nice and Friendly.
S.F.F.S.