The Thai Orchid

I usually love Thai food but this place just really missed the mark. My husband and I just went for the first time and it was flat out disappointing. My husband actually didn’t even eat more than 3 or 4 bites of his meal. The crispy squid appetizer is fairly expensive for the amount you get. The Pad Sea Ew had a dirty dishwater taste and the service was slow, our waitress was super nice but we were ignored for a good portion of the time we were there. I hope it was just an off day but we won’t be going back to find out.

Chili Rice. Lunch menu.
2.5 stars out of 5 — mediocre.
Basically just beef and rice with sauce on it. Flavor was okay. Meat wasn’t tender. Egg roll was amazing though!
Service, there was only one lady seat in customer, taking orders, refilling drinks, etc.
Will try another day, not on a lunch rush.

Nothing at all to bring me back. Service, soup and egg rolls were all sub par. My curry dish was really good though while my wife’s chicken dish was on the ‘meh’ side.

disappointed.
It was alright, def different from other thai places… my friends & I all ordered Pad Thai, and she said it came with a salad n with peanut dressing? hmmm must of missed that. all we got was some cabbage straws on side of our plate.
anyway, the noodles came plain, i had to ask for spice tray because love it spicy & the noodles were just plain noodles. It was just ok, one waiter so it was extremely slow service. i probably will not return.

I used to love this place. What happened?! My curry was oily and very disappointing. They made 4 sizzling dishes for other patrons that were so smoky and spicy everyone in the restaurant was coughing and it was hard to breathe because you were breathing in all the spices. I have no idea what the dish was but the odor was terrible and made for a very unpleasant restaurant experience. Won’t be returning. Won’t someone please open a quality Thai restaurant in KC???

The food here is not bad, but they really need to improve the serving. It took us 90 minutes from getting in the door to finally have our food ready on a Friday night! Seems they lack of waiters/​waitress AND chiefs: I can see only 1 waitress serving about 20+ people, plus someone is at the front busy with take out orders. And with that such a long waiting time, they automatically charge you a 18% tips!
Don’t recommend unless you don’t care about the service you get and only care about the food. In fact there are some other Thai food out there on Metcalf Ave with much better service and food.

I love Thai food more than most other Asian types, and I have to say, this is some of the better Thai I have had. In comparison to the last Thai place I posted, it’s 100x better.
The pad Thai dish was great. I would recommend this to anyone who enjoys decent Thai food.

I was really excited when family called and wanted to go eat here. I haven’t eaten at this place in over a year. That said, it doesn’t have the authentic Thai flavors that it use to have. Don’t get me wrong, it was still good, but not as good as it once was. The Thai tea was very good. I had cashew and nuts. The flavors were missing something, I’m not sure what, but like I said earlier it wasn’t the same as I remembered it a year ago. The waitress was attentive, place was clean and had nice décor. If your not accustomed to Thai authentic food you would probably rate it higher than I did. If you are use to Thai food I would choose another place.

Had the Wed lunch special, pad curry. It was absolutely delicious. Egg roll was amazing as well. It was packed for lunch and there was only one server and one cook. I felt sorry for them. Wish it was better staffed so the service would be quicker. Still very pleased with the service given the circumstances.

I haven’t eaten here in probably 8+ years and my experience back then was good… at least i didn’t remember anything negative. Today was just plain bad in every way. It was the lunch hour and there was only one employee. She had to seat guests, take orders, run the register, answer the phone for take out orders, etc. It took forever to place our order and it was only half full. The dining room was FREEZING… everyone had their coats on. The soup was lukewarm at best. The Pad Curry was also lukewarm and tasteless. I couldn’t tell if there was even curry in it… (seriously… I eat a lot of curry and i’m not sure what that was!). I guess I’m spoiled with having Thai House (99^th & Holmes) so close to home. I think I need to go there asap to purge myself from this experience!

The service was good. Very sweet and attentive. It was freezing though. Super uncomfortable to be sitting there. Not sure if the heater was broken or they are saving money. That made it really hard to enjoy yourself. Just wanted to eat and get out of there and run to my car to blast the heat. The food was fair but not the worst and not the best in KC. Too pricey for the quality and experience. I won’t return any time soon but I might give it a shot somewhere down the line.

Best Thai hands down! Great service. They are so sweet. Let them know if you are congested or have a cold and they will hook you up with great soup that truly does make you feel better.

This place is usually great but the service has been lacking. Lack of staff and out of ingredients that are in half of their recipes is not a good sign

I’ve been to Thai Orchid a handful of times over the last year and I never leave upset. The inside of the restaurant is always clean and is nicely decorated. The staff is normally the same 3 people. The front lady who often is the only server/​front of house is very friendly and makes a point to get to know her regular customers. We’ve really enjoyed getting to know her over the last year!
The food is great. I personally love the sizzling hot seafood plate and thai bouillabaisse soup. Any of the soups are good, really. The curry is also amazing and you can’t beat their lunch prices either. I personally believe this is the best Thai food in the OP/​KC area and would highly recommend.

Thai Orchid is a small Thai restaurant with standard vegetarian offerings, located in a strip mall near Shawnee Mission North. I was visiting Kansas City and visited Thai Orchid with a friend.
I ordered a plate of vegetarian Thai spring rolls and red curry with tofu and veggies, medium. Thai Orchid had the best red curry with tofu and vegetables that I’ve had in Kansas City to date. The tofu was cut into these nice triangles that were crisp, but soft. The level of spice was right on the mark. They absorbed the curry’s flavor very well. What’s so regrettable is that I didn’t take a picture — I just couldn’t stop stuffing my face to record the experience for Unilocal.
The service was a bit confused on one thing: one server told me the Thai spring rolls had pork and shrimp in them. The other server told me they were vegetarian. I had ordered a full appetizer portion of the spring rolls on the recommendation of my close friend that I was with, who is also vegetarian. So, I cancelled the order. Finally, a third, elderly lady came out to us and said they were vegetarian. Hearing this, I reordered them. It was a messy interaction. This series of events took so long that I finished my red curry, realized that I hadn’t taken a picture, and subsequently photographed the spring rolls. Crushed it. The spring rolls are fried well, filled with tasty veggies and cellophane noodles.
The lunch menu is very simple. I believe they have a larger, more expansive menu for dinner. I’d definitely come back if I were in the Kansas City area, and I’ll make sure to take a picture.

I had plenty of time at the DMV and wanted to get lunch. I love Thai food, but from the outside the place looked like a hole in the wall, but luckily a group of 3 people were leaving talking about how good it was so I decided to give them a chance. Once inside I was greeted very cheerfully and seated immediately.
My favorite dish was not listed and when I asked about it I was informed that it was on the dinner menu and larger but they had no problem making it for me.
The wait seemed a bit longer than expected but well worth it, the food was fantastic!
The portion sizes are very reasonable. The lunch portion looked like enough to fill you up without being stuffed and the dinner portion I was unable to finish.
Don’t judge this book by its cover!

Upper class Thai food, for a decent price. it is the best place in the Kansas city area. Most are fast-​food. This my dear Orchid, gives you a picture of what it would be like, flavor and quality wise, at the best places in bangkok.

The Thai Orchid is one of my go-​to walking distance restaurants, and I don’t know how I haven’t gotten around to reviewing it. People seem to report spotty service here over the years, but I haven’t experienced that. I don’t know if I’ve ever been there for a midday meal, maybe once, tops, and I’ve never bothered with takeout, but dining in for dinner, I’ve always had great service. Tonight they were packed, but we still got our food extremely quickly. The ladies working are always spot-​on with refills and checking up on me.
I’ve found the food to be good, but it does seem like over the past couple of years, their menu offerings have decreased. I did notice that there aren’t any soups, not even Tom Yum, listed on their dinner menu… don’t know about their lunch menu. I like all their curries; even though I don’t typically enjoy Thai curries as much as Indian ones, I make an exception for the ones here. The red curry is my favorite… coconutty without being sweet. I don’t have any complaints about their level of spice, they always seem to spice things the way I ask. Unlike a few other Thai establishments in town, they are able to add heat to their dishes in a way that complements the flavor of the ingredient, versus overwhelming all other flavor with pervasive heat. Don’t get me wrong, I love some heat, but I could just stay home and gnaw on peppers if I didn’t give a rat’s ass about intricacies of flavor. I would also say that their soft Thai spring rolls are among the best, and so pretty, too. You can get them vegetarian, I think, but the regular ones with pink shrimp showing through the rice wrapper are just so aesthetically pleasing. They are crisp and flavorful, with lots of fresh herb character… they really do taste like springtime. The dipping sauce is top notch, too; sweet, spicy, and peanutty all at once.
My only complaints are related to the space… it’s a narrow storefront, so they have limitations, but it’s one of those places where the tables are… intimately close together. If it’s not crowded, no biggie, but otherwise, you’re essentially dining WITH random strangers if you get seated at any of the tables not around the perimiter. They have a bar along one side, but I’ve never seen anybody drinking at it, it seems to be used mainly as a staging area for takeout orders. Also, I tend to avoid going here in colder weather months, because it always seems too chilly for my tastes, and the door to outside opens frequently due to their takeout business.

Dang, I truly wanted to love this little place, but alas, a great overall Thai restaurant is really difficult to find.
The pro’s: The woman who took my order was very sweet and the menu has a lot of solid looking options to choose from.
The rest: We ordered two curries to go, and most curries are pretty reminiscent of soup right? Instead of being put in a soup container, the curries were put in a flat styrofoam container. I had these bad boys buckled into the front seat and they still spilled everywhere.
The curries were fine. They didn’t taste great or have many vegetables or kick to them. I thought they might be good for someone who hasn’t ever tried one and wants to branch out, but for the curry veterans out there, they’re not great.
The quest for delicious and nearby Thai continues.

After several visits to Thai Orchid I am still undecided. All trips have been good but not great. The restaurant itself is very clean, the food has always been fresh and made to order however something is missing. We gave tried carry-​out for dinner and in my opinion overpriced for the small quantity.
I enjoyed the lunch menu and prices were much more reasonable.