Up front I should admit that I am half Thai; my mum is Thai from central Thailand, so I know what real Thai food is supposed to be and taste like, also when comparing to the food I eat when I go to Thailand.
Last weekend we went to this restaurant because I was in the area to watch the Canucks-Oilers game at a friend's house on 68th, but, to be honest, I found the food here not really like genuine or authentic Thai food as I have eaten in Thailand since I was a little boy. Maybe it is OK for Western people, many of whom probably don't know what real Thai food is supposed to taste like and who don't normally like spicy food. It was OK, but the food at the other Thai restaurant up the street and across the way, has like real Thai food and genuinely authentic and tastes much better. This was more like Chinese food dressed up with Thai spices.is
The service here is the same, and quite friendly, too, but nothing to write home about. The thing that bothered me was they kept trying to get me to write a 5-star review on Google reviews (we were asked 3 times if we would do it for them), which I found rather tacky, although I have experienced this tactic a lot in Richmond and in north Surrey, too.
The chicken satay was rather dry and had a funny, slightly bitter flavour (sort of like maybe too much turmeric???) that I couldn't recognize; it needed a lot of sauce to go down. The pat thai was a little too gooey for my taste and I think they use ketchup instead of sweet tamarind for the sauce. True pat thai supposed to be done in real Thai style using only sweet tamarind; it certainly didn't taste like it had tamarind and there were only a few small shrimp instead of prawns. In Thailand, it is a sacrilege to use ketchup in pat thai. The phat grapao beef could have had a stronger basil flavouring; it was not very noticeable, and it was not really spicy-hot like true Thai pat grapao. I thought it was expensive for what we got and the quality of the food, but anyway it is edible and OK. I am yet not sure if I will be back. read more