Lai Thai

I’ve been going here for over 10 years, most favorite spot. But after today was another story. A month ago, I said «no peanuts» in my meal due to allergies for my son. They gave me my plate with peanuts and I told them, please no peanuts my son is allergic. They wipe it off and bring back the exact same plate. So, only I eat it. We come back today, same issue. This time, I mix the peanuts so they give me a new one. The owner asked the waitress if I mixed it. So she comes back to me and asks me. And I told her yes i did, because last time you gave me the exact same plate back, and my son is highly allergic. She walks away before I’m even done talking. And I can hear the owner ask the waitress, «what did she say?» And she tells her I did mix it. So I get my food and it’s fine now. But as we leave, she sees our table and asks «are you going to leave a tip or what?» I’m like wow! I don’t know if you even deserve one now! I will not be coming back here, and will spread this word out! Thumbs down Lai Thai!!! FYI, yes I know Thai food is a high allergy place for peanuts, but you CAN say no peanuts at restaurants. If I could put zero stars I would! But to post you have to mark a star. And btw this is my very first post! Signed up for Unilocal just because of this! Allergies are no joke! Get with it, you’ve been here for years!

Best place to get Thai food in the southbay. Pad Thai is great, Tom ka kai has good flavor, and the service is great. This place has been here for many years and they’ve stated here for a reason. In addition to the service, the food comes out fast and they get the spicey level right. They have a great lunch special if you want to try different food for a discounted price. Great place, great food, and great service

Been in love with this place since the first time I walked in the door as a teenager. Now as an adult I take my daughter here and get a thrill to see her enjoy it as much as I do! I love their beautiful décor and the staff knows me and my family when we go. The food is beyond delicious and it’s exactly what I crave when I think of Thai food. No other place has ever stood up to their food for me. I recommend the Angel Wings, Thai Spring Rolls, and the Pineapple Curry! I love that I can customize my heat level on their curry too. So if I’m feeling in a very spicy mood I can crank up the heat or drop it down if I just want a little. I refuse to go anywhere else for Thai food, and at the end of the day I love to support my local business anyway. Even though I moved out of the city and then back, Lai Thai will always have my heart and my taste buds! Hands down my favorite restaurant!

The staff here are always friendly and attentive. I come here and always feel so serene from the pleasant ambient music. The first time I tried their curry my taste buds exploded, I’ve kept coming back ever since. Fresh spring rolls and peanut sauce are my favorite as well as the red curry which I order vegetarian. I’ve also tried the crunchy noodle. Sweet, crunchy, a bit on the greasy side but really good! I love Lai Thai

First time at enjoying Thai cuisine and first time at Lai Thai. Located in a strip mall along with many other asian eateries Lai Thai has a layout of a higher scale restaurant than the other fast food type of set up. Golden Chopsticks a few doors down probably offers the closet competition. The area is closed of to diffuse distraction of walking traffic and the music played is perfect. There were TV’s in the dining area but were turned off. I liked that.
I asked our waitress to help us out. I love shrimp so she easily steered me to the shrimp soup in a coconut milk and peanut sauce. A number 5 on the spicy scale from 1 to 10. I was very tasty and had plenty of shrimp and mushrooms. We also ordered Curried shrimp and barbecued shrimp in peanut coconut based sauce. They were delightful, delicate, and spicy, but not hot like you would find in mexican food.
I must say it was a bit pricey. My wife and I shared a pot of ginger tea, soup, a wonton appetizer, the shrimp, and chicken. The bill came to 46 dollars.
I was a nice first experience. I learned much and will study the menu a bit longer. I did see interesting dishes being served at other tables, so there are many new treats for us to try next time.

I’ve been here before. Was literally craving for curry today. I ordered green curry with shrimp and it was not on their lunch special $ 12.95 I said that’s fine. It was a huge order with rice good for 2. It was nicely blended sweet and spicy gingerly taste. I liked it. There were about maybe 7 – 8 pcs of shrimps in there. Food came fast. CS was okay. I would definitely recommend this place. I like their Buddhas. Namaste ;)

I really like the food here but the service is getting worst and worst! I do not think I will be coming back! Last time I came to eat here I had a coupon I got from the San Diego union tribune. The lady who helped me (she wears glasses) seemed to be familiar with the coupon but then made a phone call to probably her supervisor… I can hear her saying how she was supposed to know if the coupon had been redeemed or not which is an understandable question she should of been informed on the proper procedures… But after the half hour we waited for my friend to get her card back and her having her back to our table I became upset… But the worst part is when we were walking out my friend decided not to leave a tip and the same lady ran after us and asked us how much we would be tipping after my fiend clearly wrote ZERO.

To start I am now in love with the hot ginger tea. It’s lightly sweetened with a crisp, clear ginger taste. I also had the Lai Thai Duck which was very good. I asked for medium (5) spiciness which is exactly what I recieved. The crispy noodles were not the best I ever had but those were had in Hong Kong so I’m a bit spoiled. The service was pleasant, they even offered me a to-​go cup for my plum sauce. Overall this place is worth my repeated patronage.

I can’t complain about any thing on the menu everything is really delicious I really enjoy the Thai tea and especially the sticky mango rice at the end!!!

One of the very few Thai restaurants in National City and near our neighborhood of Paradise Hills. The owner is always visible and an awesome hostess!
Favorite starter: Shrimp Twists (7) shrimp wrapped in crispy noodles. The plum sauce is delicious!
Favorite soup: tom yum Kai!!! By I also love the Tom Kah tofu! It’s brought out in a flaming hot pot!
Noodles: love their spicy drunken noodle with chicken!

I have been station here in San Diego for 7 years now. Been to a lot of Thai Restaurants. La Thai has the best padthai I ever had! It taste just like the pad thai I had when I was in Thailand. This place is one of the best thai restaurant here in San Diego.
Great job!

4 stars
My homegirl & I went to get dinner last night two hours before they closed. I was kind of skeptical about going inside because it was empty. We were seated right away since there were no customers. The interior was decorated with old pictures & interesting thai designs. I also noticed that it was kind of dark inside. For the ladies, if you’re wearing shorts, your thighs are going to hurt. Some of the booth chairs were ripped. Luckily, I had a flannel with me. Used it as a thigh blanket to prevent my legs from getting scratched or even get cuts. It was pretty sharp. Please consider fixing your chairs.
Our waitress was a middle aged woman who never smiled. Made me feel weirded out…(on our second visit, a different lady served us ‘owner’? And she was very nice)
We ordered one spicy drunken noodles with shrimp (spicy level 8) and seafood pad thai (spicy level 8). It was pretty good, but I’ve had way better thai food. Sadly, I only got few shrimps (on the second visit, had 9 shrimps) but the seafood pad thai had decent amount of seafood. Also, level 8 &10 for spicy was not even spicy… Other thai places’ level 8 is killer spicy… I find this place a little bit too overpriced for their quality of food & service. It was about $ 28 in total.

My fiancé and I have came here at least 15 times and finally decided to write this review. We always order their delicious Bangkok Wings and a soup to start off with for appetizers. My current favorite is their Tom Kah Talae coconut soup. We also always order their chicken pad thai and chicken yellow curry with brown rice. Something about their curry just tastes so delicious compared to others I have tried. I never leave this place disappointed. Always satisfied.

Yummy Thai food! Their lunch specials are super cheap and super filling. Doesn’t beat my favorite Amarin Thai but if you’re in national city and want some Thai food, stop by! The owner is so sweet, she was constantly checking up on my cousin and I. Our server was very friendly too; despite the language barrier she was still trying to talk to us. The décor is super Thai but they’re so adorable! Not sure if this place gets super packed for lunch but around 1:30 it was empty.

I’ve had food from here a couple times but it was always because I’ve had it from parties where people ordered the large trays of Pad Thai or Pad See Eew.
I came inside for my first time and it was a little dark inside, if I’m being honest. We were seated right away and I already knew what I wanted. They do have a lunch special, and that’s exactly what I ordered. When asked about my level of spicy was I said 5, and when the food rolled out, it was just a hair too spicy.
Honestly though, I think the levels of spiciest varies amongst other Thai food places because I’ve ordered a 5 from other places and it wasn’t as spicy as what I got today.
I ordered the Chicken Pad Thai for the lunch special (6.95 for Chicken, 7.95 for Beef) and it came with a small cup of salad, two little pieces of egg rolls, and two little fried dumplings.
For a 6.95 lunch special, it wasn’t all too bad so it sufficed. The small cup of salad had little pieces of wilted and browning lettuce so that was disappointing, but everything else was good.
All in all, Lai Thai is decent enough if you want Thai Food, and don’t want to drive far. Luckily for me, it’s not too far from where I live so it’s all good.

I like the food here and people who work here are nice. We normally order the regular pad thai but my friend suggested the pork bbq pad thai and so we did. The taste was just awesome blended with a level 3 hotness or maybe lesser. At first i got used with a level 5 so that’s what i ordered for the pork bbq pad thai, it was a mistake and became too hot for me haha lesson learned. I will come back to this place whenever i feel like eating noodles. It may take a while for you to get your order especially on a busy day or lunch/​dinner time.

Family was visiting from the San Jose area, and I wanted to treat them to Lai Thai. We decided to peruse the appetizer menu, since none of us was super hungry. I managed to slip in a rice entrée, though, and glad I did.
We were greeted and seated immediately by Nikki, the owner. She also took our order, and was very gracious during our two-​hour stay. Couldn’t have asked for better service. When Nikki didn’t check on us, another polite and attentive server did.
Our waters arrived promptly, followed quickly by incredibly cold bottles of Asian beer (the name of which I have forgotten, blame the beer.)
We decided on two orders of Fresh Veggie Spring Rolls (4 per order, $ 5.95), and chose the option for shrimp on one order for an extra buck. The standard spring roll has a ribbon of tofu in it. Wow, they were so fresh, and so delicious. Each order came with a generous amount of sweet/​sour sauce and peanut sauce, which was my personal favorite.
We also had the Fried Wonton app (8 per order, $ 5.95), which came with a rich, sweet plum sauce. These little two-​bite-​sized purveyors of cream cheese were quite delectable. Now I’m thinking the plum sauce was my favorite…
Next were the Thai Dumplings (6 per order, $ 6.95). Although small, they were stuffed with chicken, shrimp and crab meat, and came with a light, delightful sweet dipping sauce.
My entrée order was Pineapple Fried Rice. This was a very attractively presented dish of mixed-​grain fried rice, infused with fresh pineapple, chicken and shrimp, topped by a generous number of large, whole cashew nuts. Everybody loved it.
There were no leftovers, just some really fond memories of a Thai restaurant with excellent food and wonderful service. Yep, we’re going back soon. But I’ll leave Mr. AmEx at home, he don’t work here.

I have eaten here many times and honestly the food is good and always came out satisfied. But this time around I was not so happy, it wasn’t a busy night. There were about 4 tables to be served and two servers were out assisting. It took 10 mins for them to ask if we wanted anything to drink and another 15 mins to see what we wanted to order. So just to order our food took almost 30 mins.
I usually get the chicken pad Thai, papaya salad and Thai tea. The pad Thai was good, the papaya salad was ok this time around, it taste different, not sure if it was missing an ingredient or they had another cook make it.
The most disappointing part was my Thai tea. It was sour! I took the first sip and it made my face squint, because it taste like sour milk. I asked my sister to try it just to make sure that it just wasn’t my taste buds playing tricks on me but my sister taste the same sourness as I did.
I was shy to tell them about it because I didn’t want to hurt their feelings but I had to tell them because if other customers ask for Thai tea I wouldn’t want them to drink this sour drink. So when I told them about it they were kindly enough to replace it with a new one and this time if was perfect! It wasn’t sour. So whatever milk they use was probably spoiled.
To be honest I haven’t been there since this whole incident.

I definitely have had better. The lunch special is an ok price for the portion but nothing out this world in terms of flavors.
Service is very slow and quality is below average.
Not coming back.

The last time I was here was forever ago. I didn’t even have a Unilocal account to be exact. At the recommendation of the lovely friend and fellow Unilocaler, Nette B., I decided to drop in after a very long hiatus with the co-​habby to re-​visit their food… there Panang Curry to be exact after she raved about it. And it was divine.
Lai Thai used to be home to a well known place called the Original Thai BBQ. Does anybody remember that place? It was my first experience with the typical newb Thai classics such as Pad Thai, Chicken Satay with Peanut sauce and the like. 17 years ago. Along came Lai Thai and it successfully took it’s place however, I stopped coming after a few bad experiences and then it fell off the radar again and I never returned. I’m glad I came back.
What we had:
Drunken Noodles with Beef: where other places like Sab-​E-​Lee are not consistent on their spice level, this place is. I was not fond of the bean sprouts in my dish so next time I will ask them to omit these. Other than that, it was quite good and had that nice smokey flavor I look for in my Thai dishes.
Panang Curry with Chicken: this one was my favorite. The sauce is thick and rich where other restaurants feature a thinner, less flavorful sauce. Thumbs up in my book!
Portions are not as large as some places however the quality more than made up for that small flaw. I will take a good dish over a hefty dish any day. Service was good, our food came out in a timely manner and although she did botch our order, she was apologetic and corrected the matter immediately.
I’ll definitely return the next time I am in my old ‘hood!