Orchids Authentic Thai Food

From the SF Bay Area and we eat Thai a lot! There are very few restaurants that have gotten our approval. This was hands down one of our favorites anywhere! Excellent food, balanced flavors, great service! Highly recommended!

One of the very few Thai restaurants that I like. Food here was amazing, we ordered Spicy fried rice (veg), green curry and spicy basil noodles. All of them were amazing, especially the curry (the best I ever tasted!). We went with 3 spice level and it was nice.

Great food! The restaurant had very little wait for our group of 10 (or maybe we just got lucky!)
The food was authentic and tasty. The portions were quite big, I struggled to finish my garlic chicken entrée even after a day of skiing!
The noose level is low and the waitresses don’t bother you too often.
The chicken entrée dish came with lots of veggies and that made it nice and crunchy.
One of my friends got a salad and it was a big serving, with an entire cup of peanut sause dressing!
The mango rice pudding dessert was ok, nothing great. Their drinks (soda) were decently priced.
Even though we were a group of 10, our food came in quite quickly. Considering the restaurant was full this was a great accomplishment.
One thing to note: my garlic chicken dish was quite similar to my friends Cashew nut chicken dish, so just ask them if what you’re ordering is diverse enough

We had the hardest time finding dinner and were so lucky to get a call into this very busy place. They told us 20 minutes and the food was ready for us to pick up. Everything we ate was delicious. We ordered both fresh and fried spring rolls, pad thai, and pad see ew. I would recommend the pad see ew it was one of the best I’ve had and we love Thai food.

Oh the foodwas excellent. The one star is for not taking our «Warning! My son has severe peanut allergy» seriously. Ended up in Emergency in hospital. Our dinner ended up costing $$$$.

Love this place. I got the spicy basil pad Thai and absolutely loved it. Very spicy and flavorful. Will definitely be eating there next time I’m in town. Made a reservation, this place gets pretty packed.

Got pad see ew. Was good but needed less sweet. Fried rice with tofu pretty good. Both needed more green veggies.

I stopped in for some dinner while in town and the food was delicious. I ordered a red curry with shrimp and it was made just right. The prices are reasonable and the service friendly. Will definitely come back next time I’m in Tahoe.

I am craving their crispy duck! The servers were very friendly and even shared a great ingredient of that special sauce that goes into their shrimp pot. Who does that? My friends and I voted this as our fav Thai restaurant here in South Lake Tahoe. The portions were very generous and reasonably priced. Can’t wait to dine here again. Plus, there’s an awesome toy store next door that’s been around for 16 years. Shop and dine :)

Pretty consistent Thai food. Very fast service even when busy, they do to go orders as well. The pumpkin curry is my top choice. Pad Thai is great, soups are great. AMAZING RANGOON’S. A bunch a new Thai places in town, but this is our spot for Thai

Food was great! We ordered pad thai, orchid fried rice, and chicken panang curry, with thai iced teas.
Service was okay. They’re a bit slow when it comes to coming back to take your order and when they bring the bill/​take the payment. I was hungry when we got there so when they took a little tooooo long to take our orders, I wasnt too happy.
Cute little find in South Lake Tahoe. The food tastes pretty authentic.
The orchid fried rice has little pineapple chunks. I was hesitant on ordering that because I didn’t know how I felt about having sweet with savory, but it was delicious! The pineapples were so sweet!!! The panang chicken curry was amazing, not too spicy.
We came to this restaurant on accident. And we don’t regret it :)

We were looking forward to having some delicious Thai food while our stay at Lake Tahoe in the month of December. After looking at the good reviews on Unilocal,we ended up here and that turned out awesome for us! We absolutely relished our meal.
Veggie Spring Rolls were really crispy. Lemongrass Soup (Tom Yum) was the most delicious and soothing dish we could ask for in the cold winter of Lake Tahoe! One quick note– We shared a large among two and the portions are huge! Even though we loved the soup, we couldn’t finish the entire thing! Probably better to start with small. Spicy Basil (Pad Kra Prow) comes with a side of white rice and it was yum. Spicy Fried Rice was awesome too with good quantities! We hogged like monsters! :D
Will definitely try something else the next time we are here!

Service: comically POOR at the start, and then it picked up.
The waitress/​hostess was extremely rude, and turned away several customers. We came in as a party of 8, and there was only one party of 4 ahead of us. When we asked how long it would be, she told us 45 minutes, and then she sighed super loudly and said «we are super busy.» Seemed like she tried to deter us from eating here, but we were determined. (It ended up being 15 min wait btw)
When a party of 2 came in and asked for the wait time, she said «it’s gonna be at LEAST 30 minutes…» as if that was just outrageously long. Girl was having a bad day.
Another party of 3 came in and asked to get take out, she said «no we’re too busy.» I really didn’t get this because there were empty tables around.
After we were seated, food came out within 10 minutes of ordering, so that was awesome.
Food:
Pad thai, pad see ew, pumpkin curry (kinda spicy), yellow curry, and crispy fish were all delicious. Very fragrant and tasty.
Food is more important than service to me, so I guess I would come back and hope that another hostess is working that day.

Poor service. Unresponsive waiters when attempting to talk to them. Rushed orders. Slow service overall. Felt disrespected during my entire stay.

Best Thai in California! Best restaurant in Tahoe! Awesomest place apre ski! Try the panang curry and the tom Kha soup!

2 STARS FOR SERVICE. 4 STARS FOR FOOD.
Boyfriend and I were visiting family in town & got told Orchids was a really tasty place. The atmosphere & décor are a little dated but it took a good 2 minutes just to even have someone help us get seated & when someone finally did pay attention to us they asked, «can I help you?» Yeah we want a table???
Had two different waitresses, one was more attentive than the other. I had a question & asked one of our 2 waitresses if I could ask her a quick question when she was done wiping down the table. She seated two more people & got their orders before asking me that question — a good 5 minutes or so… Ok? Super weird.
I ordered a this iced tea and I am attaching photos on what they brought to me. They brought a cup of condensed milk pretty much with a splash of tea — if you’re a Thai tea drinker you know if comes half in half. I asked for a new one (very politely) because it has way too much milk and the server was SO RUDE about it! And she brings me half a cup of room temp Thai tea without the milk and told me to just add it to the full cup…
I asked for a new one not this bullshit. That right off the bat pissed me off. I had wanted Thai tea all day! We also ordered a hot tea which took 20 minutes to get — we got it after our food came…
But let me do tell you — the food was fantastic! I ordered the spicy basil noodles (like drunken noodle), coconut soup & garden salad & my bf got the sweet n sour chicken. Lots of big portions — we took most of it home. So if you’re in the mood for good Thai food it’s a must — if you want good service too, GOOD LUCK.

Since my previous visit here was eight years ago, well before I went gluten-​free and vegan, my review needs updating!
Other reviews indicated that Orchid’s can customize their dishes to be vegan and/​or gluten-​free, and I’m happy that they did so for us. We asked for no soy sauce and no fish sauce. Our server did warn us, «Okay, we can absolutely do that, but it won’t taste the same!» That may be true, but our Veggie Fried Rice and Pad Thai were absolutely delicious even without those sauces! Still very flavorful and loaded with tasty seasonings and fresh vegetables (and yummy tamarind sauce for the Pad Thai). Even my mom and brother, who typically order these kinds of dishes without omitting anything, both said they wouldn’t have known anything was omitted if I hadn’t told them! They still loved the dishes.
Also, the portions are huge. I honestly don’t think I could have even eaten half the plate of Pad Thai, and it is a good thing we were sharing family style. I think that is how these dishes are meant to be eaten anyway.
The only thing I didn’t love about the dishes is the use of canned baby corn and canned straw mushrooms. I don’t know what it is, but the canning of these vegetables impart a flavor to the dishes that I’ve never been terribly fond of. I could have done without these veggies but this was only a minor issue.
My previous review complained that the dishes were too salty and too greasy. I’m guessing omitting the soy sauce and/​or fish sauce took care of the saltiness, and we got different dishes from last time so I can’t comment on whether they are still overly greasy, but what we had this time weren’t terribly greasy at all. Even the Veggie Fried Rice was fine!
It was a very busy evening for the restaurant including a huge 16-​person group, so we had to wait a little while to be seated (it was also peak dinner time) and had to wait a little while to get our orders taken. But we understand it is difficult on nights like this, so we didn’t hold it against them at all and waited patiently. Our food was well worth the wait.

Pretty good thai place for the area.
I wouldnt get the curry puffs tho. Its pretty much like an empinada cept curry flavored. Not worth the price and the taste was just ok.
All the entrees were pretty good. They were def a lil pricey than normal but they make it up with a huge portion.
I got the panang curry with duck. I didnt expect it but the duck’s skin was crispy, which is pretty unique as it usually doesnt come like that. I appreciated the difference in taste but id probably still prefer it non-​crispy. Either way, it was still a pleasant surprise.
Overall, this is a good spot to hit up before your drive back from tahoe and its a good thai fixer too.

Since the line at My Thai was way too long, we opted to come here instead and I’m so glad we did! The food was superb and surprised me.
+ THE FOOD
My family and I ordered the chicken & shrimp pad thai, shrimp tom yum soup, pottery shrimp, bamboo shoot with shrimp, pak ruam jae, and rice (lol I realized we ordered a lot of shrimp…). The noodles in the pad thai was a bit tough but the sweet, sour, and bit spicy taste was pretty good. The tom yum soup was delicious as it wasn’t too spicy and had a perfect tangy taste with a lot of shrimp, onion, tomatoes, and much more inside. The pottery shrimp was interesting as it was a glass noodle and shrimp dish inside a clay pot. It wasn’t bad but there was a lot strips of ginger inside the noodle, making it difficult to separate. The bamboo shoot dish was sweet and very tasty. The pak ruam jae was just a variety of vegetables that was slightly salted.
+ THE PRICES
It was very good for the amount of food given. Each dish was really big and every dish was under $ 15. The total bill came out to be around $ 70 for 5 people, making the dinner pretty cheap and worth it.
+/​-​THE ENVIRONMENT
Initially when you enter in, the place seems very dingy, dark, and dirty. The carpet looked like it was from the 80’s and had not been cleaned for years. However, all the dishes and utensils were very clean. The waiter made sure our table was cleaned twice before we sat down! What great service too!
Definitely would come back here next time I’m back up at Tahoe.

During our last visit to Lake Tahoe we decided to dine at Orchid’s Authentic Thai Food restaurant as we were fed up of continuously eating in fast food places and wanted a change. Upon entering we found them to be completely full and were told that there would be a 20 minute wait. As this seemed to be reasonable we decided to wait. The 20 minutes stretched to 40 before we were finally seated. Our server was in a tremendous rush. we were handed menus and almost instantaneously asked for what we would like. We started with the drinks but were told to order the food along with the drinks. Our server also gave us a lot of attitude in answering simple questions. When asked to recommend a spicy dish from the menu we were told everything can be made spicy. When asked what is the most popular dish we were told that as everyone has different tastes all dishes were equally popular. I mean how difficult is it to answer a few simple questions? I guess very difficult at-​least at Orchids. We went on to order a bunch of standard Thai dishes like chicken sate, egg rolls and fried rice.
After the long initial wait we were expecting the service to be very slow but the drinks came out pretty quick followed by the food, 10 minutes later, which was a pleasant surprise. Taste-​wise the Thai tea was OK, the Chicken Sate and Egg Rolls were good but all the entrees ranged from very average to just plain bad. All the entrees lacked flavor, were terribly soupy and seemed to have been quickly thrown together and sent out the door. We still cleaned our plates as we were extremely hungry but to call this authentic Thai food would be an insult to every mom and pop neighborhood joint that manages to do it right. Price wise the entrees were in the $ 15 range so it was not terribly expensive but certainly not an inexpensive meal.
Considering the overall package of quality of food, service and price, I would rather continue eating at a fast food restaurant rather than wasting my time and money by coming here again.