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| - On Monday, March 28th, 2016, I had nothing in my fridge and I just come back from work. I had arrived back home at 11:30pm from a very long trip on Easter Sunday, and so I didn't have time to get any groceries during the weekend. I decided to give the Golden Lemon a try, to hold me over until Tuesday. I'm always willing to try new restaurants - maybe I will find a new favourite?
I will admit, I am a good cook. I can make Pad Thai and other dishes amazingly well - and because of that, my standards for restaurants are fairly high. I often end up cooking dishes that are better than slightly-above average to semi high-end restaurants.
I will say the food here is miles below the quality that I could prepare myself - and it's always disappointing to find that out. It also does not compare to other Thai restaurants. For example, Thai Room, My Friendly Thai or Taste of Thailand all serve better Pad Thai and curries - especially for the price.
The big complaint that I have is that the Golden Lemon charges $13.99 for its Pad Thai or Golden Curry when the quality (and even portions) belong in the $8-9 range.
The Pad Thai was methodically boring. They need to use more tamarind and fish sauce. The noodles were undercooked, and they didn't even use Banh Pho rice noodles - they tasted more like a cheap Chinese variant. The noodles weren't even translucent in colour, which is how it's supposed to be cooked, and I doubt they were soaked for 30-45 minutes in water beforehand. The dish also lacked any reasonable amount of Tofu (I found 1 piece in my entire order), the eggs were not properly mixed in with the noodles, there were only 2 pieces of chives used as a garnish, and I can't even remember if there were any roasted peanuts. There were no crushed chilis, banana blossoms, turnip or any other garnishes used that are key to adding distinct flavours to the dish. The lime wedge was incredibly small as well - you should get at least 1/4 of an entire lime, but this wedge was so thin you could barely get any flavour out of it.
In the curry, the vegetables were barely cooked. There was actually cabbage in the dish (raw cabbage doesn't fit the flavour profile for Thai curries, not to mention their cabbage was horrendously undercooked and unseasoned despite that). I presume the cabbage was there to reduce the total cost of the ingredients. The sauce was thin and lacked texture. Honestly, I think they just cracked open a can of coconut milk and added some canned paste and called it a day. Thai curry pastes should be made with fresh ingredients - shallots, ginger, lemon grass, etc. - and they should be cooked to build texture and flavour before they are mixed in with the coconut milk. Instead, their curry was just milky and flavourless, and the vegetables were barely cooked in this mess, resulting in a dish that a university student could make by just purchasing the paste and coconut milk at a Thai grocery store.
What's really weird is that the side-sauces they give you don't even fit the dishes you ordered. Soy Sauce and some Hot Sauce variant? Just how am I supposed to use those with Pad Thai or Curry? Did you even think this stuff out? I ordered PAD THAI - please provide some freshly roasted peanuts in sesame seed oil and give some crushed dried red chilli peppers. Did you not even Google what is served with this dish?
All of the food I got tasted merely okay - none of it was "bad" and uneatable - but I seriously say that if you like Thai food, that you could do much better. If I am going to pay $13.99 for Pad Thai or a Thai Curry, then it better damn well be as good as what I could prepare at home. I feel like I massively overpaid and it was obvious that the food wasn't cooked with love, care or passion and the aim wasn't to really satisfy customers. The Golden Lemon simply makes fast Thai food that is undercooked and carelessly prepared with little thought or effort, and then rushes it out the door to customers that grossly overpaid for it.
Food lovers... please take my advice: Simply Avoid.
Regards,
Katie
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