Top Southeast Asian Restaurant in Palo Alto
Rangoon Ruby Burmese Cuisine
445 Emerson St, Palo Alto, CA 94301, United States
This was a second visit after a very pleasant first experience, both times on a Thursday evening. The staff is friendly and attentive, the venue has been recently upgraded and has an urban feel. The highlight are the blown-glass chandeliers. Outside seating is also available. The tables inside are very close to each other and overhearing the neighbors conversation is unavoidable. From the appetizers tried the Samosas, Egg rolls and Palatas: the Palatas come with a side of chicken curry and the Samosas with a tasty spicy red sauce. All were tasty, but the Samosas were extremely hot, we burned our mouths. In contrary, the water for the tea was not warm enough to brew a tea and even more disappointing was that the water had a very strong smell, ruined the otherwise excellent and fragrant Mighty leaf Green tea Tropical, at $4.50 for a small pot. The brown rice was nicely presented, but again, not warm enough, undercooked and completely tasteless. On the opposite, the chicken curry was so oversalted, it was not possible to eat without the rice, although the meat itself was tender and cooked well. The pieces of chicken were quite large to serve with the spoon and hard to eat without a knife, but strangely, the utensils include only a fork. The highly recommended pork noodles were tasty, but very oily. I mostly enjoyed the eggplant with garlic, but that was very oily too. Overall, for the price expected much higher quality of the food and service.
Tamarine
546 University Ave, Palo Alto, CA 94301, United States
Last night we went to Tamarine to celebrate my son and MILs birthdays. We were very excited because my wifes last visit was phenomenal.We enjoyed the claypot cod and vegan avocado spring rolls. However, most other dishes were underwhelming. Our least favorite was the chicken meatball which although cooked smelled like undercooked chicken. The Ha Long Bay soup was served lukewarm. The food appears to have dropped significantly in quality since August 2022 although reviews here suggest otherwise. We felt like it lacked both the presentation and flavor that we came to expect from a fine dining restaurant.It would have still been a 3 star experience had the service been good. Unfortunately, our waitress made an already bad experience terrible. She seemed disinterested in serving us. She tried to upsell us sparkling water and wine right after introducing herself. During the rest of the meal, she was inattentive to our needs. For example, we ordered two drinks. We only got one. When we asked for the second drink after 10 minutes when the food had arrived, she got us the drink and offered to comp it. Yet, she proceeded to add it to our tab.She didnt enquire about our food preferences at any point or offer us any useful recommendations. All we got were half-hearted platitudes and insincere remarks that made us cringe. After the entrees came out she disappeared completely. I get that it was a busy night but at no point did we feel like she made the slightest effort to make us feel welcome or comfortable. We waited for a long time before flagging down another server to ask for our waters to be refilled. We also had to wait a while to flag her down for our check.We werent asked about desserts. Not that we could give how slow the service was and it was bedtime for my son. When we made the reservation and mentioned the occasion we were told that they offered chocolate lava cakes celebrate birthdays. She offered a weak and insincere apology when we mentioned that we werent offered the lava cake we were promised. She offered to get it for us after we paid the bill, almost out of pity. We can get one if you like.. there is a dessert menu and that sort of a thing... I can still get it.. Do you want it?.To make things worse, we were slapped with a 20% gratuity (+ 4% employer mandate) for a table of 4 adults (bill attached) for this travesty of a service. The menu mentions a mandatory 20% gratuity for a table 5 and over. I dont know if infants count. Our bills shows that we were a table of 4. Its possible that the reservation indicated we were a table of 5, but a diligent waitress would have checked it first.We were at our wits end and in no mood to discuss this with her.We were extremely disappointed. Especially since my wifes last experience was nothing short of stellar. What should have been a celebration was marred by sub par food and very poor service. My in-laws had flown in from out of town to celebrate with us and the evening was an absolute trainwreck.I would not recommend Tamarine to anyone or dare to return.
Lotus Thai Bistro
425 California Ave, Palo Alto, CA 94306, United States
I have never written a review for a restaurant before but after my experience today at the Thai Lotus Bistro I felt it would be an injustice if I did not. I entered with high hopes of being a great whole in the wall family style Thai restaurant, took my seat and was immediately presented with water and the daily soup but did find it strange that the waiter didnt say a word to me. I looked over the menu and not 30 seconds later the waiter asked if I was ready to order, I asked for one more minute hurried myself and decided on a something basic, the Pad Thai, said please and thank you and he walked away, again without a word. Having ordered my food I decided to try the soup which was absolutely terrible, yet I was hungry and ate what I could while my food arrived. Thats when I noticed a fly land on the table and fly off and out of the corner of my eye the waiter, was glaring at me. Strange I thought, had I done something wrong, I certainly hadnt responded to any food with a grimace in fact I had been smiling since entering the restaurant. The food arrived and I still had high hopes despite the soup being bad, but what I received was not worthy of being padthai, besides the lack of flavor and soggy noodles, it was poorly mixed and all around lazy, I had a hard time finishing it but I was hungry and am not one to waste food. I paid without a single word of thankyou from the waiter, and on my way out a nice manager who asked if everything was alright, this might have saved me from writing this, but the absolute rudeness from my waiter and the terrible food has made me write this. I have never left a restaurant ofeeling so displeased. Let me say all of the staff was thai except for my waiter who was a white guy. I hope the management will do something about this because they have lost a customer and there is no way I will return, in fact I will tell others not to go there. All in all, horrible waiter, bad food.
Top other services in Palo Alto:
INDO Restaurant & Lounge
3295 El Camino Real, Palo Alto, CA 94306, United States
An Indonesian restaurant close to me? yayyy :)Im indonesian so I grew up eating indo food and its rather difficult finding a restaurant that is close to me until I read about this place. None of the food is really authentic and I know better than to think something called Indo restaurant and lounge would actually make legit authentic indo food, BUT they do offer something very similar and it still tastes great.The place is really big! dont be fooled when you drive by it on el camino, because its actually really long. They have nice outdoor seating that can accommodate large parties and they have a nice bar too. The place is casual to fancy-ish. Its definitely better than your normal restaurant. check out the website and youll get a feel of how it is.I came here for lunch on a Thursday with my coworkers and it wasnt particularly busy. We had a large party of about 8 people and we were seated outside. The waiter was super nice and he was really attentive :) He joked around with us and made sure we got everything we needed! so service was great and now onto the food.INDO SAMPLER: chicken satays, samosa, poh pia, tartare. The chicken satays were delicious, it had a nice grilled char taste to it and their peanut sauce was super yummy. The samosa was okay, it was really dense it potatoes but I thought the flavoring of the samosa was decent. Poh pia is like a vietnamese spring roll, except that its filled with tofu instead of shrimp and there wasnt mint. It was okay nothing really that special about it. The tartare was okay, it was kind of weird because the tartare was sitting on one of those shrimp cracker so combined it was a really weird mixture in my mouth. not really that fond of it.MIE GORENG: MY FAVORITE. I love fried noodles so this dish was it for me. It was really flavorful, sweet, and spicy. The egg noodles absorbed all the flavor and so every bite was delicious.CHILEAN SEA BASS: The fish was cooked perfectly. Very tasty, it was pan seared to perfection. The portion is really small, it is intended for like one person maybe two if you felt like sharing. The dish had some vegetables that came along with it and it was on the bottom, it served as a bed of the sea bass to sit on, it was a tad bit salty but flavor wise was good.BIHUN GORENG: this is like fried noodles but with vermicelli instead. The thing is with vermicelli it doesnt absorb as much flavor so I thought it was bland. But the crab meat was a nice touch.LAKSA NOODLES: This was super yummy too! Its a noodle soup and the soup is coconut based so it was heavy. But it was packed with a lot of flavor and they had some really nice jumbo prawns in it. This is on their special lunch menu, so its meant for one person but you can easily share this dish.SEAFOOD GREEN CURRY: I really really liked this curry. It was spicy! It had a lot of flavor and it tasted soo good with the rice.We also got Jasmine rice, coconut rice, and brown rice to go along with our food. You can pick out what rice you like but I think everyone really loved the COCONUT RICE because it had extra flavor.The food was great, the service was wonderful, the atmosphere was nice so I would go back here again. It is definitely BETTER THAN STRAITS.
Killiney Kopitiam
552 Waverley St, Palo Alto, CA 94301, United States
Some of the best food I’ve had in the bay, and probably my new go-to restaurant!My parents are from Malaysia, and malaysian food has unquestionably been my favourite cuisine; which sadly is not widespread enough in North America. However, Killiney Kopitiam did not disappoint. It’s the first restaurant I’ve been to in the Bay area that really hits the spot for that unique Southeast Asian taste (food and drinks); but unlike food I’ve gotten in Malaysia, the portions were deceptively large, and I definitely found myself full by the end of it.And as a bonus, the owner (I think) gave us Pandan Swiss Roll and Curry Puffs on the house!TLDR; just overall an excellent experience, with remarkable food, cool vibes, and welcoming staff.What we ordered:1. Beef Rendang2. Char Kuey Teow3. Roti Prata4. Yuan Yang (Coffee + Tea with Condensed Milk)5. Curry Puffs + Pandan Swiss Roll on the house