Thai Cuisine II

Best pad Thai and phở! Love coming to this place to eat with my husband and enjoy our lunch/​dinner!

It’s all about the pineapple fried rice and Penang curry. The Penang curry must have some crack in it — hits the section of my tongue that screams DELICIOUS! I recommend that you call ahead for takeout and plan for it to take 10 minutes longer than they say if you don’t want to wait around– because good food takes time and everyone is coming here for a reason! So glad this place is close by. Great for lunch or dinner. The pineapple fried rice is a huge portion, and for a few bucks extra I recommend extra shrimp.

The food is really good but the wait is horrendous once the restaurant gets busy.
They only have two or three woks to cook the non-​soup dishes. Every time I go when its busy its a 2 hour wait after you order your food.
One time they offered us drinks on the house and we were like ok. When it came to the check, they added the drinks on the bill and when I went to go contest it began a full 10 minute back and forth argument about their compensation for the long wait.
I would go here for to-​go or on a non-​busy time but I would never recommend anyone to go here during any rush hour.

The food is good, but it’s pretty pricey. The pad Thai is a pretty large portion and tastes great. The service however is usually really slow and the restaurant is extremely busy.

Definitely the go to spot for consistently great Thai in Merced! The quality is always excellent and always consistent. It’s a little bit more expensive than other places but you pay for what you get.
Amazing Thai curries and you can even get them with salmon super good pad see eww and amazing phở! The menu is huge and still have a lot to try!

I love this place Ben here a couple of times. Have not had a problem with the food or the service. They also have very clean and fresh smelling bathrooms. A little hard to order of the menu but everything looks and taste good. Comfortable experience

I’ve been coming here for quite sometime now and the taste of the food is always consistent in flavor.
I usually always get the Thai Fried Rice with no tomatoes or the Pad Se Ew with extra broccoli or Pad Thai. If you’re looking for good Thai food with a consistency this is the place to go to. The portions is really big as well. I always go home with lots of left overs.
The service however honestly depends on the day. Sometimes it is fast and attentive but there are some days where I had to wait 30 mins or so for my food to come in. When my friend came in today it was close to closing so it was much faster service. One of the waitress came by and gave us complimentary spring rolls! So sweet, she said she made extras.

The food was good and the portions are decent. However, the service was slow. If you go during dinner be prepared for a long wait. First, wait to be seated 15 – 20 mins. Next, wait to order. Last, which is the longest wait, your food.

First of all, I would say the food here is good. I am a student at UC Merced and always come here. Pad se ew is the best. If I only rate the food here, I would give it 4.5.
However, the service here is very very bad, especially one girl (I don’t know her name). and the serving time is really slow. If you go there at dinner time, waiting for «an HOUR» is expected. This really effects the mood for food. And if you ask the waitress to see if your food is ready, they are not happy to do it, they even charge you more on purpose if they are not happy. One time they charged me $ 5.25 for one cup of coke, crazy.
All in all, the food here is good, service is bad. So if you really want to have a try, remember to call first, and take your food back to home to eat. Don’t eat at their place.

Best pad Thai and pad se ew in town. Awesome and friendly staff. As well as quick service. Whenever mango sticky rice is in season I would be more than ecstatic.

WARNING #11 «Larb» salad — menu provides choice of pork, beef or chicken. We ordered beef. We received beef w tripe! Doesn’t say tripe on menu or any mentioned in menu!
We did not eat it cuz we don’t eat tripe or ordered tripe but they would not take off our bill!
The did not even offer to replace with another meal.

Took the folks here over an hour to get our entrees to us. Too long of a wait and we almost left but understandable as they did have a full restaurant. However, no apologies or explanations for the slowness of their preparation and only until we inquired did they explain that the chef had forgotten our ticket. Minus one star.
Also no utensils were provided when one of our entrees was set down on the table. None at all and it was next to impossible to flag anyone down within 15 minutes while my food was cooling down since I do not eat with my hands since we are in a civilized nation– instead I got up and had to grab utensils off the next nearest table that was unoccupied. Minus another star for service.
Overall service could use a little brushing up– they were overeager cleaning up the tables and to the table on our left, the lady had grabbed the couple’s dish of Pad Thai and ran off to kitchen but the couple had not finished eating so they literally had to shout at her that they were still eating it and when I saw the plate– it was still half full. Not sure why the waitress would grab it so quickly. This happened to us as well, we had a curry sauce that we had to pay an extra $ 2.00 for (kind of ridiculous since we had asked for a complimentary side of it– and in English complimentary means «Free» but not to the folks here…) — and the waitress cleaning up took our curry sauce which was full still and we had planned to use it on the take-​out portion of Pad See Ew we had not finished. This was disappointing and premature for the waitress to take things off the table without proper manners and asking the customer. Minus the third star.
However– I must say, the Thai food is impeccable here. I had to add another star for the tasty delicious Thai food. The folks running the kitchen all look authentically ethnically Thai so that guarantees some authenticity in the flavor and food was on point. I got their version of Vietnamese «Phở» noodle soup which was called, «Beef noodle soup» on their menu and it was quite good. Broth was clean without MSG and hearty as well.
Overall, it really is still the best Thai restaurant in Merced and one of the better places to dine for sure judging by their popularity and probably with students as well since their prices are very reasonable.
Will be coming back, just hope that they do not take that long or take away any of our plates before we are finished with it. Customer service would go a long way in improving the restaurant’s rating with customers.

We waited soooo long for our food. I think they forgot our order :(we waited about 30 min before asking and then 20 min after asking. It wouldn’t have mattered if I wasn’t starving. There were only two of us and we only ordered 2 things

Great Thai place. Nice food, good service. I recommend number 14, it’s a char broiled beef salad with lemon and a hint of mint. Portions are large, so prepare to buy share only a few dishes.

I have been here a few times and I am never really blow away. This place has good food, that is if you get it warm. In my last experience my friends and I sat down and waited for a very long while for our food. When it arrived 3 out of the 6 plates ordered were cold. They seemed reluctant to take them back. When they did come back warmed the rest of us were nearly finished eating. We were very dissatisfied with the service and were upset that because we came in a large group we automatically had to pay gratuity. We all have decided not to go back.

The food is very good. They have a lot of choices on the menu for you to pick from. I got the combination phở and they only have one size but trust me. It’s like a large at any resteraunt. Couldn’t finish it but it tasted really good! I didn’t give this a full 5 stars just because it took about 30 minutes for our food to arrive but we came here on a Saturday night during their rush hour. We got placed in the far back corner so I’m sure the waiters forgot about us at one point in time. Overall if the place wasn’t so busy it would’ve been 5 stars ! Would recommend and come again:)

I am in Merced for work and was starving so I googled restaurants and this was one of the first to pull up, so here I am. And there’s people in here so that’s a good sign!
I ordered a Diet Coke and water and the ice is shaved! Love it! And I noticed right when I sat down that they have sauce options out, which I love, so I don’t have to bug the wait staff for them. And yayyy they have pickled jals! It seems like no Thai spot has these anymore!
They have a lunch menu until 3 so I ordered a yellow curry vegetarian dish, which comes w rice. The portion was decent and it tasted good. Vegetarian had cabbage, cauliflower, carrots, onions, cucumbers and baby corn! I should mention they didn’t have a vegetarian option, I had to ask for it.
The waitress never checked on me to see how the food was, but it was good so I didn’t need her to anyway. It seemed clean! I would come back!

Ate here two days in a row. It’s that good. And affordable too. Everything from the noodle dishes, seafood & vegetable mixtures to the soups. All top quality in my book. I’m surprised they don’t charge more. Always busy when I’m there of drive by. Yes, found them on Unilocal under best restaurants in the area.

I’ve learned about this place in 2011 because of college. My friends are always raving about how good their food taste, and I couldn’t agree more. I do have my reasons for the low ratings though…
Atmosphere (3 stars): I like their variety of music. There’s at least 15 tables here that seats at least four people per table. They will push tables together if you come with a big party. Seating isn’t too much of a problem, unless you visit during busy hours (lunch and at or around 6pm). It’s a popular place located in a small shopping center with other restaurants (Starbucks, wingstop, etc), so sometimes take-​out may be the better option. FYI: if you are seated in the booth on the side near the bathroom, you will be neglected more than other tables.
Service (2 stars): whenever I order take out, whether coming in person to order or calling in, it takes over 30minutes for my single order to be ready. I usually order take out for myself, so I’m only ordering one entrée (I.e pad Thai). The wait is ridiculous for take out. The wait is ridiculous to be seated. One time I visited with my friend, it was our turn to be seated but one of the waiters sat his friends down before us and they arrived at least 10minutes after us. This was very rude and unacceptable. However they’re in luck, Bobby, one of their waiter is great. If it wasn’t for his service, I wouldn’t bother to dine in or visit as often. Another incident was when I ordered take out, and they messed up my order but didn’t apologize, and made me wait another 20 minutes for them to «correct» the order. I don’t feel that this is a customer-​oriented restaurant.
Food (3.5 stars): I love their pad Thai, but sometimes it’s inconsistent. I don’t know if there are several chefs or what, but sometimes the food is too dry or too oily. I also wished that they would put more tofu into their pad Thai, it’s cheap but they only give you 2 – 3 small pieces and if you want more, you would have to pay $ 2. Note that the $ 2 add-​on only gives you maybe 5 pieces more than what it already comes with. Same with their pad se-​ew, sometimes it’s too dry or too oily but it’s also one of my favorite dishes. When I’m not interested in a noodle or rice dish, I order there beef and meatball noodle soup. It’s already really good, and very reasonably priced. I would recommend this, but again, sometimes the soup is bland and tastes watered down.
I would give this place a higher rating if the food was a bit more consistent and the services improve. Give this a place at least one shot before shooting it down, you might get a better experience than me.

Came in at 7 pm and it took 20 minutes for out order to be taken. I had to go up to the waitress to ask her to take our order while she was behind the counter folding utensils. Her excuse was that she didn’t see us, like really?
The food took another 45 minutes to come out and the dining room was not even full or busy. My friend and I ordered the curry #50 and when it came out the waitress said if we knew it didn’t come with rice. We obviously assumed since there were other rice plates on the menu. Then she had the audacity to laugh and giggle when we asked for rice and plates for the rice.
The food is decent but the portions seem small for the price. The customer service was absolutely horrible. The one guy that was also waiting tables was the only courteous worker here.