Great meal, good service, great value! Looking forward to my next time there! Quiet environment! read more

The food at Thai Cafe is ordinary AT BEST, particularly in a town which has Thaiangle, Thai 55, Twisted Noodle, etc. However, it's passable; the big problem is the EXECRABLE service. We arrived for lunch at 2 pm; they are open for lunch until 3. Fine. Except the server was pushy, obnoxious, and clearly trying to hustle us out the door the ENTIRE time we were ordering/eating (even though they seated two groups after they seated us!). The server was overbearing, barely spoke English (virtually incomprehensible, fast, and garbled), and hovered around the table trying to take plates when people were nowhere near finished. Perhaps the ******* server doesn't know that when you list a closing hour it does not mean you stampede guests out the door at one minute past that time??? I told him on the way out I'd leave a terrible review, and I'm a man of my word LOL. About the food--well, the Thai basil is mediocre with huge chunks of Perdue-type 'chicken' and not enough basil *or* onion; the red curry is sourish and rather vinegary; the mussaman curry is tasteless. The tom ka gai is watery with a very odd aftertaste. The Thai iced tea is reasonably good. LOL! DO NOT go to this restaurant--virtually any other Thai place in the Triangle is superior. read more

Stopped by for some Thai Tea while shopping in the complex. The staff were friendly and the Thai Tea was tasty! read more

Thai Café - Thai tea - Thai Near Me - Durham, North Carolina

Thai Cafe is a fantastic locally owned spot. The chicken noodle bowl with lemon curry sauce is absolutely incredible, flavorful, comforting, and full of depth. The service was warm and attentive, and I appreciated how spacious the dining area was with plenty of seating even during a busy lunch. Bar seating is usually my go to for solo dates and there is plenty room there too. A perfect place for a casual meal with standout dishes. Highly recommend checking it out. read more

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We went here with a pretty large group and they handled everything pretty easily. I am celiac and got the gluten free Shu She Salmon which was great. It comes in a curry sauce. Honestly everyone liked their food. read more

Something has changed in the last several months, maybe a new chef? IDK, but the quality is not as good as last year, and when I order Crispy Calamari, it is not crispy, there are only skinny strips and not very many of them. It used to be a pretty full basket of all the squid bits and now its just boring and way too expensive for what you get. read more

Thai Café is a centrally located comfortable meeting place for conversation, cocktails, Thai cuisine, and dessert. Service is prompt and friendly. Tried the spicy coconut soup with tofu, which was tomato-based with a little kick. Tasty. Ordered the chicken satay skewers with extra peanut sauce - my favorite! Added fried rice with chicken, which came in a larger portion than before. I generally order the chicken Dumplings. Be sure to order them for the table as they are delicious. Next visit I'd like to try the coconut cake; I run out of room for dessert at this joint because the food is so plentiful. Food is consistently good. Be aware that if you're headed in for a late lunch, they close at 3 then reopen for dinner. After a glass of delicious rice wine, we lost track of time and was caught off guard so my friend and I walked to the other end of the shopping center for a beer at Boot Room to continue hanging out. Be sure to check it out to to have a pint and watch futbol . read more

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The food was DELICIOUS. The venue was clean and the staff were very friendly. They also have good drink specials. read more

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Continually one of my favorite Thai restaurants in Durham. They always have great food, great specials, a good drink selection, and excellent desserts. The parking is easy and the service is very good! Highly recommend for small groups and larger groups. read more

Atmosphere: Thai Cafe is a spacious restaurant with plenty of seating. A good casual spot for when you're craving Thai food! Service: We came with a reservation for a big group, and the service was still quite efficient. Food: We ordered the Beef Spicy Basil Leaves and Chicken Pad See Ew. The spicy basil (medium) was solid but could've used more heat, so next time we'll bump up the spiciness level. Similarly, we were hoping for some more flavor in the Pad See Ew. It was pretty one-dimensional but still palatable. Overall: Thai Cafe serves up decent Thai food, but our orders weren't outstanding. We hope to come back to give them another shot in the future, but we generally prefer other Thai food options in Durham. read more

Thai Café - Beef Spicy Basil Leaves - Thai Near Me - Durham, North Carolina

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Wow! Thai Crab Fried Rice is out of bounds! Friendly atmosphere, great hospitality and more. read more

Food alway tastes fabulous. Salt and pepper martini! Servers are attentive. Relaxing place. read more

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Came here on a friend's recommendation and was not disappointed. The staff was very friendly and the owner even came out to check on us. Tried the coconut soup. Delicious! Also had the fried tofu and the spring rolls. They were amazing. We then had Yellow Curry with chicken and Green curry with chicken. Some of the best curry I've had. The bonus was that everything but the spring rolls were Gluten free. Which was great for my daughter who's gluten intolerant. Lastly they brought out a gluten free coconut cake which was to die for. Just when we paying the owner brought out some coconut and mango ice cream to try. Also GF and delicious. The place has a great feel to it and was cozy. Will definitely come back when I'm in the area. read more

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In Durham for a show, stopped in at Thai Cafe for a later dinner. Excellent authentic Thai food. Its a storefront shop in a strip mall, with abundant parking. The room is square, with perhaps 20 tables, plus a bar with 10 seats on the right. Nothing fancy, but organized, clean and inviting. Our server, Siriwan took great care of us. Seated immediately, menu and specials explained, food delivered as ordered. Service is QUICK - less than 5 minutes from order to service. The Pad Thai is traditionally prepared. An enormous mound of rice noodles, stir fried in peanut sauce with shoots of green onion. On this night, with chicken. A sizable portion of chunked chicken breast, sauteed with the noodles. Plenty in this serving to take home, made for a delicious lunch the next day. Also had Spicy Beef Salad. Greens, tomato, red onion, zucchini are stir fried with slices of lean beef. Plus spicy red pepper for the heat. Don't order it unless you like hot - this one makes your lips tingle. There's a full menu of Thai favorites, plus sushi. Plenty of other choices to try on the next visit. read more

Thai Café - Chicken pad Thai - Thai Near Me - Durham, North Carolina

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I really don't know what to give this place, we arrived at 8:40pm and the hostess tried to get the waitress to Come over to us, the hostess finally said they were done taking orders and the kitchen was closed. I was very disappointed that we could not eat here. Maybe the website should have when the kitchen closes but it is Saturday and the website said 930 the door says 9 something needs to be updated so no one else makes this mistake! We were going off the websites hours, the place did look cozy. read more

Thai Café - cars parked in front of the restaurant - Thai Near Me - Durham, North Carolina

I thought this was good! It was quick and nice. First, I love a big menu. The menu is big! There are lots of options for people with different spice levels. I didn't drink but they had a good drink menu too. The service was good. They kept the water coming! and they were nice about my peanut allergy. There are lots of things on the menu that do not have nuts. Actually, most things don't have nuts. I liked my duck dish! The duck was super tender, which is good!!! It seemed really well cooked. I also liked the pineapple and vegetables that were in the curry. I love a green bell pepper!!!!!! My minor complaints are: 1) id love a bigger bathroom! There is a single person men's bathroom and so I had to wait for a few minutes. 2) my curry was just a little sweet for me. I'm just not a person who likes sweet that much! Maybe a lime garnish or something would help cut it. read more

Thai Café - Roasted Duck Curry with Red Curry - Thai Near Me - Durham, North Carolina

I got a soft shell crab with asparagus sauce - it was very good. The asparagus paired really well with the crab. Not the largest portion for the price, but it did come with rice and was a tasty dish. I had plenty of room for dessert and ordered mango sticky rice. This was also really good, not overwhelming sweet, and was a good way to finish off the meal. read more

Thai Café - Soft Shell Crab With Asparagus Sauce - Thai Near Me - Durham, North Carolina

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I rarely review restaurants on Yelp. But I rarely have been so disappointed in a restaurant as I was with my takeout from That Cafe. I am relatively new to Durham (just over a year) but not to Thai food. My recent go-to here has been Twisted Noodles, which I have been pleased with. But I thought I would try something new tonight. When I saw that Thai Cafe had squid salad (properly squid yum) on their menu I decided to give them a try. I also ordered two Thai takeout standards--green curry with chicken and drunken noodles with beef. The squid yum had a tasty dressing--the only tasty element of my meal. But sadly the squid was not particularly tender--in fact it was quite chewy. When I opened the drunken noodles, which I ordered hot, I saw that their way of increasing the heat was to sprinkle chili pepper on top before closing the container. If that's what it means to order it hot, I can do the same thing at home. You would think they might be able at least to mix it in to the dish, which itself was close to tasteless. There were no flavors of Thai spices in the noodles. A total disappointment. The green curry followed suit, beginning with the red chili pepper sprinkled on top. Like the drunken noodles, this dish was almost tasteless. Again the flavor of green chili paste was almost non-existent. Bland bland bland. I don't know if the chef/owners don't know what Thai food is supposed to taste like or if they have decided that Durhamites want bland food or don't know what Thai food is supposed to taste like. The large dining room was almost half full, and people seemed to be having a good time. So maybe they have judged their audience correctly. I, however, am not a member of that audience. read more

I was not impressed. I was really looking forward to trying this place to have a new Thai place since I moved here. This isn't the place. The only good think about this place is the coconut soup. Very glad the waiter recommended it. I had the spicy basil with chicken from the lunch menu and it was labeled a 2/4 spicy. To me that was hardly a 1. I'll keep trying to find my new Thai place I guess. read more

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This hole in the wall was so great and had fast service! Sadly, their lunch shrimp pad Thai was a bit disappointing. There was no flavor, it was dry and only had 3 shrimp on my plate. I did see my friends who got their chicken pad Thai and their plates were a bit more saucy and looked to be more flavorful. I am not sure if it was just the shrimp dish (there were 3 of us total who got shrimp and all had the same sentiments). I do want to try other dishes here again, but this one was so disappointing I am not sure if I'll go back. read more

Thai Café - Pad Thai - Thai Near Me - Durham, North Carolina

Worst customer service ever. As soon as we entered the restaurant we were told the restaurant closed at 9:00 (we came in at 8:15). I was not asked if I wanted anything to drink after water was brought. We were reminded shortly the kitchen would close soon as we tried to read the menu. After we ordered our waitress sat and stared at her phone most of the time until she came to give the check. Later they stacked all of the chairs at 8:45 (they close at 9:00). We felt so rushed and unwelcome. I would never recommend this place. The service is beyond horrible. read more

Tonight we had the worst Asian food in our long lives. We played it safe ordering spring rolls and pad thai. The pad thai was simply noodles and the spring rolls were the worst. read more

a really nice dinner place that's conveniently next to some great bars! we noticed it was somewhat humid inside so perhaps their ac was broken but that wasn't too much of a problem as it was also decently busy. we took a few minutes to come up with sharing three entrees & the food came out pretty quickly (10-15 minutes)! our waitress came with a box when she saw our chicken dish left then brought us our check, however, another waitress picked it up after about 10 minutes as our waitress went off elsewhere. overall, it was a very nice place for a dinner date or family dinner; the food was good but i've had better pineapple fried rice & bbq chicken; the service was decent, it was nice how they help each other out as takeout & incoming customers were pretty frequent! read more

Thai Café - pineapple fried rice, bbq thai chicken, thai cafe spicy catfish - Thai Near Me - Durham, North Carolina

Panag curry here is the best I've had in a long time. Finally a Thai curry that doesn't taste like it's missing something! And most importantly, it's consistently good. I will keep coming back just for that. I had it with tofu and vegetables. I did also confirm that there isn't fish sauce in it for those looking to avoid that ingredient. The green curry, however, leaves much to be desired. It just tasted watered down and weird. Would not try that one again. Service was friendly and attentive. However, when I called for take out the line was busy for over 30min (I called back over and over for that period of time), to the point where I had to just make my order in person at the bar, but when I walked in, it didn't seem too busy (Although my perception may have been incorrect). Another man walked in and placed a large order at the bar immediately after me, so I imagine he had the same problem with calling in. read more

The food was great, but I was disappointed because I ordered a take out , prior leaving the resto we already gave a tip on the bill, but one server waited for us to finish using the restroom and came up to ask for another tip on the take out saying that it is mandatory to think that we already gave one! It blurred out my food experience! read more

Went in for a quick dinner before a show - service was quick and friendly, food was served hot and was excellent! I will be back when I'm in the Durham area! read more

I visited Thai Cafe recently for the first time, and really enjoyed it! The Pad Thai Shrimp was so yummy, and warm also plated very well, especially for a lunch dish. The service was good, too. Parking was easy, though I took a late lunch that day. I look forward to returning and trying other dishes. read more

Thai Café - Pad Thai Shrimp - Thai Near Me - Durham, North Carolina

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I have been dining at Thai Cafe since I moved to Durham, NC 12 years ago. It does not disappoint-ever!. The food and service is always good- or even great. When the place is crazy crowded or very slow, they do an excellent job of proving gracious and timely service, and of course, the delicious food. Lately, they added some new dishes to their standard menu. So far I have tried one, and look forward to trying others. Thai Cafe has become a family celebration restaurant for us. For birthdays, we manage to eat the coconut cake, even when we are already full. We can share or take some home if we can't finish the generous portions. All the dishes have generous portions.. Like all businesses, their prices have gone up, but reasonably so. We still feel that we can afford excellent dining without being scalped. read more

This is my favorite Thai restaurant in the area. The ambiance is nice and the food is delicious. I have LOVED everything I have tried on the menu- especially the spicy coconut soup and the BBQ chicken. You also can't go wrong with the pad thai and curries (my favorite is panang). I have been here with large groups (my book club loves this place) and they are great. But one thing to keep in mind is that the tables are long, not round, so you end up only being able to speak with the people near you. It's not terrible, but worth keeping in mind. Much better spot for groups of four or less. My husband and I also love getting take-out from here. We live nearby, and they package it up so nicely, and it's great just being able to walk up to the bartender and get a box full of food- and a thai iced tea for the road! The parking is never too bad here. Which is crazy considering the horror show that is the Nana Taco/Q-Shack lot right across the street, and that Beer Study and The Boot are right down the way. Regardless, we usually just pull right up with no issues at all. This place is a Durham staple and I hope they never close! read more

I was recommended to this restaurant for help he coconut cake that they sell individually. I was not disappointed best coconut cake in area! I will be back!!! read more

The food is good but I can't justify the prices anymore. Had dinner there with 2 family members- $86! Sorry, Thai Cafe- I'm out! Shrimp Massaman with 6 pieces of shrimp, white rice and 5 slices of avocado-$26- no, just no. read more

Came here for an impromptu dinner after a girls' day out. It wasn't anything spectacular, but it was also decent for the price. I got the pineapple fried rice, which adorably comes in a half pineapple. It was a good dish, but not mind-blowingly delicious. In fact, it's of comparable quality to what I can cook at home, and I'm certainly no chef! We also got the pad thai, which was also a middling dish. That being said, good Thai food at affordable prices around Durham is pretty rare, so if you're craving decent Thai food at the lower spectrum of the pay scale, this is the right place for you! read more

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Always good food and service!!!! We went there for my birthday celebration. Very close to Sarah Duke gardens.

Not very good Thai, to be honest. Very lackluster in flavor compared to other local businesses. Service is pretty good but the atmosphere is bland and there's not much effort to make the dishes stand out. We probably won't come back here. read more

Just see the picture, you don't wanna waste time reading any review after that. I wish he did this before I ate my food Wash hands? What's that, it's busy lunch time baby, who cares if I'm picking (read drilling) my nose and using the same hands to serve water and food read more

I was craving some Thai food and a friend recommended this place. We got takeout for dinner and I'm so glad we did. Everything was hot, fresh, and delicious. We started with the crab angels and the Thai sausage. The crab angels are basically crab rangoons but you can actually see and taste the crab inside, and it comes with a sweet but vinegary sauce that pairs perfectly. The Thai sausage was spicier than I expected but so fresh, the contrast between the fatty sausage and the crisp vegetables in the spicy, sweet, sour sauce. For entrees we had the pad Thai with chicken and drunken noodles with pork. Both were good, and still piping hot by the time we got them home. The pad Thai was a bit sweeter than I expected, but the flavor was still good overall. We also tried the coconut cake which was super light, fluffy, and full of coconut flavor. We will definitely be back! read more

Thai Café - Pad Thai with chicken - Thai Near Me - Durham, North Carolina

This place was really good! My boyfriend and I are new to the area and are looking for a good Thai food option in the area. They did not disappoint! The food was prepared very well, and each of the dishes had superb flavor. We will definitely be coming here again! read more

In response to Laura A. who posted on 6/8/22 ... I witnessed that whole exchange, and you were NOT turned away. The bartender simply asked you to sit a couple of seats over from where you initially wanted to. You yelled, "You've GOT to be kidding me!" and stormed out. I heard and saw her politely ask you to simply sit a few seats over so as not to block the pickup service area. This is a great restaurant with very friendly service people who work hard to serve delicious food promptly. They do a lot of takeout, so they are equally accommodating to those patrons as well. read more

Thai Café is good choice for Thai food in the Durham area. The food is tasty and satisfying. The full bar at Thai Café makes it a good option for dinner. I ordered the Massaman curry. The sauce of this dish had a heavy cream base. Along with it I ordered a Dry Martini, which was very well made and generous in volume. The service was prompt and friendly. The restaurant itself is nothing fancy, so don't expect fine dining. Nevertheless, the atmosphere was comfortable. If you're looking for a quick bite to eat in Durham and you're craving Thai, I recommend Thai Café. read more

Thai Café - Massaman Curry - Thai Near Me - Durham, North Carolina

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Sweetie and my mom had come here last spring; mom goes all the time, and Sweetie raved about the coconut cake. I had a chance to come after Christmas. It was a little busy but we were seated right away, and service was great from then on. Mom got the coconut soup, with shrimp (an addition?) It was creamy and slightly spicy. Very good. I had drunken noodles: wide rice noodles, pick your protein (I got beef,) egg, green beans, tomatoes, assorted other veggies. It was very, very good. Moderately spicy, with fresh veggies and tender beef. We had Thai iced tea, which is sweetened with condensed milk. A nice accompaniment to the entrees. For dessert we each got coconut cake to go. Is this a Thai thing or a Southern thing? I can't find it at Thai places up north. Anyway, the cake itself is moist and dense, similar to tres leches cake. The frosting is not too sweet, and seems to be mostly whipped cream. Be sure to ask for a cherry if you get it to go; it always comes in the restaurant but they seem to leave it off of carryout orders. I thought the cake was good, but not amazing. Mom and Sweetie disagree with me. I would love to go back. There are many other interesting things on the menu, and it was a great experience. read more

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