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| - I wanted to love this place; I really did. But the slow service and so-so food really let me down.
We stopped in on a busy Saturday afternoon. We were told the wait would be 15 minutes, and the hostess took our cell number and said she'd call when our table was ready. (This sounded like a great plan!) So we walked around the Fremont East area for awhile and then returned to the restaurant to have a drink at the bar.
We told the bartender we were still waiting for a table, and he told us the waitress would get us when our table was ready. Not sure what the disconnect was, but we sat at the bar for more than half an hour while people who came in off the street sat down to eat. (Yes, some of them came in after a phone call, but I watched others who just stepped up and immediately got a table.) I figured we were waiting for a table in the small dining area and not a table in the bar area, and that's why we were still waiting. But, no. When our table was ready, it was a table two feet away from us in the bar area. (Why we couldn't have just sat there initially, I don't know.)
We tried to order a bottle of wine while we were waiting, but they were out of our selection. So my husband got a beer and I had a water. When our table was finally ready, we had to cash out at the bar first, which was also kind of annoying. But I still had high hopes, because I had heard the food was great.
I love Thai food, and when I go to a new place, I always order shrimp pad thai to gauge it against other restaurants. This one was just so-so, although the portion was large enough that the $15 price tag was somewhat warranted. My husband fared better with his beef short rib fried rice, which I must admit was delicious (and I'm not a fan of short ribs). But it took a LONG time to get our food--as well as the beers that we ordered with it--and our waitress never came back to check on us, so we never got to order a second round of drinks like we had intended.
All in all, we spent $50 and an hour and a half for three beers and a mostly forgettable lunch. I hope other diners have a better experience than we did, because the menu showed promise (and the short rib fried rice was nearly worth the wait). But I think next time I'll drive the extra few miles to Lotus of Siam, where I know the food is always excellent, even if I have to wait.
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