Reviews of Thai Spoon

I realized I have never reviewed Thai Spoon and feel I owe it to them. They're basically our favorite restaurant. I've had pretty much everything on the menu and always had a great meal. I eat primarily vegan now and they have lots of options. I ate meat previously and they have that covered to. They are BYOB which is awesome for a nice dinner out, and the take out experience is great too. Long live Thai Spoon!

I tried this place for the first time tonight. From the ignorance of the man answering the phone and not helping me through the menu (I ordered straight from the menu on here but acted like I was ordering in a different language) to the gristle, terrible taste, and extremely small portion for $13, I will not be back. Too many other options for bad Thai food. Beware!

Just ordered chicken pad thai and one order of thai spring roll for pick up. I ordered at 6:53pm. My order was not ready until 7:56pm!!! I was pissed. The cashier gave me my food, he assumed I already paid. I could have walked out but I didn't. I told him I did not pay yet. He said $17.02! I told him, do you realize I ordered this an hour and 6 minutes ago, can you help me with a discount, the person on the phone said it would be ready in 20 MINUTES!. He went in the back to get someone and she offered me a 15% discount. Talk about insult to injury. I reluctantly took it. The food quality is good but due to this incident I will never go here again.

The food served at this resturant is not at all impressive.  There is another Thai resturant in Dormont that is much higher quality with kind and humble owners.  I will not name that place within this review, but you can easily look it up.  i did enjoy the food at the sister company to this one in Bloomfeild, but now I can not dine there and have told many friends who previously dined there about the moral and ethical code of this company, and they also will no longer frequent these absusive people.  No people with a good social conscience would! <br/>

Disappointing. I ordered take out pad thai with shrimp. I thought the dish was bland and only had 7 small shrimps in the noodles with very few bean sprouts. I thought the price ($12.95+) was expensive. I will probably give the restaurant another chance because the reviews look good but will not try the pad thai again.

MSG, fatty duck, why?. Ever since we moved to the deep South Hills area of Pittsburgh, I've had to drive long distances to find reasonable to good Thai food. So, when a colleague mentioned to me that there is a Thai restaurant in Dormont, I resolved to try it out and that brought me and my family to the Thai Spoon on a recent Friday night.<br/><br/>The place is very small with ten or so tables and parking can be a challenge on Potomac Avenue, but there is a municipal parking lot around the corner and we lucked into a table for four without reservations. (People who came in right after us were told that they would have an hour wait for a table!) The decor is nothing to write home about, and the place is BYOB as we noticed when almost every other table brought their own wine bottles with them.<br/><br/>The menu is pleasingly large and appears to have a wide variety of items on it. While they had some of the traditional Thais dishes - like Pad Thai, Tom Yum, colorful curries - I was puzzled by the lack of some other common dishes like Lar Nar, Mee Krob, and Phat See Ew. There was also a list of specials, but no indication of how often those change. We ordered three appetizers including the special corn cake, a chicken dumpling and Tom Yum soup to share. Then, for the main meal, we shared the Thai Hot pot, Duck on Board, and Spicy Noodles. As is usual at Thai restaurants we were asked how spicy to make our dishes on a scale of 1 to 10. Not knowing the tendencies of the kitchen staff, we asked for everything to be at level 6 - but because we do like very spicy food, we also asked for the hot sauce or powder so we can amp it up if necessary.<br/><br/>The corn fritters were deep fried and extremely greasy. Luckily they came with some sort of yellowish liquid with peanut chunks on the side whose acidity cut the greasiness by quite a bit. Unfortunately, besides the grease, there was no distinctive flavor to these fritters and they were very disappointing. The chicken dumplings were similarly bland, but the soy sauce based sauce that came with them at least solved that problem. The Tom Yum soup was satisfyingly hot and had many vegetables and chucks of Tofu in it and was tasty. As far as spice level goes, we saw the red powder floating in the broth, but did not notice much of a spice kick to the soup itself.<br/><br/>We chose the Duck on Board because the waitress assured us that this is the version of duck that would be least fatty. As it turned out, this was one of the two most disappointing things about the meal. The duck was so fatty that we took almost all of the chunks out of the dish and discarded them. They were inedible. This was unfortunate as the dish itself is served with thin noodles in a bowl with a curry based broth that was actually very good. I would have liked more vegetable in there, and, of course, some duck pieces that I could eat, but the base was good.<br/><br/>The Spicy noodles were not spicy - they were very salty and had lots and lots of fish sauce as the main flavoring component. Too much for my taste. The Thai treasure Hot Pot was another broth based dish which was also very salty, but at least had more different flavors than just salt. All of these dishes were very bland on their spice level. I would characterize them as a 2 on that 'one to ten' scale and we made liberal use of the condiments provided.<br/><br/>We saw one of the other tables get a dessert of black rice and what looked like ripe mangos and decided to order that as well. When it came the rice was significantly undercooked so that it was still crunchy on the inside. The rice was covered by a sweet coconut milk and sugar sauce which lent it much sweetness which was needed to cover the saltiness of the rice. What we thought was sliced mango turned out to be some sort of custard. What it was, I cannot tell you since there were no flavor hints to judge by.<br/><br/>As you can see from my descriptions of the food, the prevailing flavor was salt. One of our members is sensitive to MSG - gets headaches from eating it - and by the time we got home, the headache was raging. All of us gulped large quantities of water both at the restaurant as well as when we got back home - another clue that MSG was used very liberally.<br/><br/>I guess that when I am in the mood for Thai food again, I will still have to drive long distances as Thai Spoon will not be on my list of places to revisit.

Unimpressed. Picked up Pad Thai and Red Curry Pork on my way home last night. As these are the staple dishes of most Thai restaurants, you can pretty much get an impression of what everything was like there. Granted a lot of the "restaurant experience" is lost when you leave the establishment, however I have had far better versions of both of these dishes at dramatically better prices ($12.95 each) at other restaurants in the Pittsburgh area .

Good and worth it. Had the Drunken Noodles w/ Beef as my first experience at Thai Spoon today. The dish was quite good and had very pronounced flavors while the vegetables were fresh and bright which was a refreshing side that was needed there. <br/><br/>I would say my first experience was positive and I look forward to trying more on the menu. The spice's get hot for me even as low as 4 but thats my personal taste so judge on your own.

Wonderful flavors and selection. I recently moved to the Brookline area and noticed this place. My boyfriend and I ordered a variety of dishes and loved them all. The flavor combinations are robust and interesting. The crispy spicy calamari was cooked to perfection and was just spicy enough. We also tried the drunken noodles. They give you the option to spice your food on a 1-10 scale. I gave a 7 and it was a little hot for me. Next time, I will shoot for more in the 4-5 range(medium). The portions and freshness are on point. This place is definitely worth travelling to try. I really enjoy thai me up in southside, but this place tops it every time.

Not that great.. There's a lot of hype for this restaurant but I've been there twice now and don't find it all that great. Had the spicy basil tonight -- it had 3 to 4 pieces of chicken it and some panfried onions, green and red peppers. It's expensive, too, compared to other restaurants. They also don't refill drinks, which bothers me. If you want some good Thai food, try the Thai restaurant on Noblestown Road. It's also very cramped, especially on weekend nights. You end up listening to the person who is sitting next to you's conversation, which distracts and detracts. Definitely not worth the money.

Great!. I live in Dormont so we eat here frequently. I think its very good overall. To the blogger who criticized the curry: I understand. My Mother-in-law always gets mildly spiced yellow curry and it tastes like coconut milk. I always get at least medium spicy, and as a result its very good. I would put Thai Spoon up there with the Silk Elephant and Bangkok Balcony in Squirrel Hill, as well as the former Green Mango in Regent Square. We also have gotten the Pad Tai frequently and I also think its quite good.

Delicious dinner. I had dinner at Thai Spoon on Tuesday evening and very much enjoyed the food. I am a first time customer just passing through the area and looked it up on urbanspoon under Thai food. It is small and cozy inside. I had a delicious chicken Pad Thai that was perfectly spiced (4 of 10). I also really enjoyed the sticky rice with mango as a sweet treat- the mango was just ripe and juicy. The young male server was very good and talkative. Will definitely be returning!

Yummy Addition to the South Hills!. My husband and I really enjoyed our first visit to Thai Spoon this past Saturday evening. We are so excited that the South Hills finally has a Thai restaurant so we don't have to drive to Shadyside or the North Side. My Panang Curry with Chicken was excellent. I ordered a spice level of five and it met my expectations. It is BYOB so we brought a wonderful bottle of Reisling to accompany our meal. Our dinners were very affordable. We loved the Summer Rolls with peanut sauce as the appetizer. The restaurant is very clean and cozy. Our server was friendly. It is a small restaurant with only about ten tables or so. The restaurant was always full during our dinner. The only drawback was how close one sits to other customers due to the small size of the restaurant. Therefore we didn't have much privacy during our evening away from the kiddos! The one couple to the right of us were very quiet. However, the table to the left of us chose to talk about their love lives in explicit details during their meal which would have been fine if I didn't feel like I was sitting with them! Their discussion almost cost me to lose my appetite. Then one of them answered his phone and began talking very loudly! But, the food was so good and that made up for their inappropriate behavior. We wll be back for sure!

This place was great! We got steamed dumplings as an app and they couldn't have been better. We tried the Thai iced tea-different but definitely worth a try. Then for our meals we got the pad sew ew and the green curry with chicken. Both dishes were delicious and service was quick. Such a great addition to Dormont and will be back again soon.

Good, not the best Thai. This is a small restaurant that I hope does well in Dormont. The food is acceptable. The pad Thai was not as spicy as we ordered, but it was good. My green curry was long on broth and short on vegetables. I has one small piece of eggplant. <br/>The crab rangoons I would not order again,there was no crab detected at all, and the cream cheese was too sweet.<br/>bYOB is always a good thing, grab a cool six pack and get some Thai in Dormont!

Yum yum yum. I was looking forward to trying this place after the review in the Post-Gazette and my only regret is not going sooner. I have been twice in the last month or so and everything is fantastic! The price is reasonable and the portions are generous. What more could you want?<br/><br/>1st time I had summer rolls, pad see aw, and fried bananas. Heavenly!<br/>2nd time I had the "golden triangle" app, chiang mai noodles and the black sticky rice with custard. Every bite was fantastic and the leftovers didn't even last overnight before I had to have them.<br/><br/>Two big thumbs up! Can't wait to go back and try something else!

I have been to Thai Spoon I few times now and I have loved every dish I have tried. The bangkok seafood has been my favorite. Also i re ommend the drunken noodles. The restaurant it's self is very small with 8-10 tables. I would recommend making a reservation or takeout but the service is fantastic when dining in.

Tasty Curry. Easily becoming one of the best Asian restaurants in the South Hills. Very simple, small interior might turn you away but the food is outstanding. The Bangkok curry I had was phenomenal - not only were the meat and vegetables cooked well, but the curry sauce was out of this world. Friendly staff (our waiter was from Northern Thailand) and good service.

I just tried this place for the first time. I got the winter curry. It was very flavorful. I am new to Thai food and am still learning the menu items. I love Indian and Chinese food and Thai is similar but has a sweetness to it from the coconut milk (coconut milk is only in some dishes). If you are thinking of trying Thai food this restaurant is pretty decent.

Rapidly becoming a favorite. This place is really wonderful. We get takeout here on a regular basis, and we're never disappointed. I love that the menu has lots of choice. The fried tofu appetizer is amazing. If you like things really spicy, you'll want to ask for extra spice. The wait times for dine-in can be pretty long, but it's worth the wait.

Simple but good. Dormont has been graced by/with this Thai restaurant fortunately and I live very near-by so i've been trying various dishes out and liking most of them .<br/>The soups are a bit on the thin side but tasty in any case.<br/>They have a lunch special pricing deal which is more reasonable than their Dinner prices which I think for Dormont are a bit too high . Apparently they also own "Thai Cuisine" in Bloomfield which recently was renovated thru and thru . I have only been moderately impressed with that restaurant maybe in part because I haven't liked the feel and ergonomics of the former space. I've yet to try it out since they re-opened .<br/>Thai Spoon is on the cramped side so , if you're claustrophobic, you'd best avoid it .<br/>Not the complex gem that a Nicky's Thai Kitchen is but ... good solid entry level Thai food ...

Great Food!. Admittedly, I am not a big expert on Thai food. I have had what more knowledgable friends have called "authentic"/"great" Thai in other cities and I think that Thai Spoon comes pretty close to those. The real deal or not, I don't claim to know, but I do know that it was very good! I had the House Noodles at a spice level 5 and it was the perfect amount for me, I like things just a tad spicy. The service was a little slow and our appetizer came out after our meal, but the staff was very friendly and, again, the quality was there, so no big deal. We will be back!

Unfortunately we never got seated. Just returned home with a pizza. When I called to check on table we got the same reply as we had been getting for the past 2 hours, 5-10 more minutes.<br/><br/><br/>-----14 Apr, 2012-----<br/><br/>I would love to say that the food was delicious, but unfortunately we are still waiting to be seated. We were quoted for a 15-20 minute wait an have been waiting for at least an hour. Hopefully it's worth the wait.

First time at Thai spoon last night and will surely order from there again! It was super deelish I got the bangcock curry with chicken and it was sooo good! My friends got the pad Thai and spicy basil both were very good also. We ordered everything at a medium heat level and it was a little spicier than other Thai restaurants we have been to so if you don't like it too spicy be sure to request a lower heat level! So excited that there's a great Thai place in the south hills now! Can't wait to go back and try new things!

Great addition to Dormont. As others have mentioned, Thai Spoon is the only thai place in Dormont, and one of the only true sit-down dinner spots on Potomac Ave. For these reasons, I was honestly not expecting much. However, the food I've had here is some of the best Thai I've ever had. It's a bit expensive, but you do get large portions. The interior is tiny but comfortable. It seems to bring in an eclectic crowd; that's what Dormont is all about. It's quite different and a nice complement to my other favorite Thai place, Pho Kim 88 in Castle Shannon.

Welcome Addition to S. Hills Dining. Mrs. T and I stopped in on the strength of the previous Urbanspoon recommendations. You will not be disappointed. We ordered the spring and summer rolls. Both very good. Our vote went to the spring roll. Next we had the mango chicken salad. Mrs. T loved it, I thought it was a bit salty. Mangos were perfect, though. June the owner came by and asked how we liked everything. I told her the salad was a bit salty. She seems to be the kind of owner that listens to her patrons. Next we shard a thai pepper pot, (H11) on the menu. Very good, very fresh. June comp'd us a dessert...sticky black rice with thai pudding. Very rich with coconut cream on it. Welcome to the neighborhood Thai Spoon. Good food, good service and an owner that cares. We'll be back.

This place is one of THE BEST Thai restaurants I've EVER eaten at! Every single ingredient is fresh, the food is appropriately spicy when you ask for it & the staff was very friendly. My wife had the yellow curry with chicken, which was divine, with an extremely flavorful broth & nice pieces of potato & carrot. I had the spicy egg noodles with beef, which was like an otherworldy version of the best lo mein type of dish imagineable. The summer rolls also popped with flavor & freshness. This is also one of the biggest menus of any Thai joint in Pittsburgh. This place is, by far, the best Thai in town. And the best part? If you live in South Hills, it sure as hell beats having to drive to Shadyside for Thai food! WE SHALL RETURN!

Dinner in Dormont. Dormont has some good breakfast places, takeout and pizza joints, and even some tasty sandwich shops, but it's seriously lacking in good sit-down dinner food. Thai Spoon is a great addition to Potomac Ave. The waiter told me they also have a restaurant -- Thai Cuisine -- in Bloomfield, which I've always enjoyed. The decor is simple, but if you sit by the window you can watch some interesting people walk past. The food is superb and I plan on going back often.

Thai in Dormont!. Thai Spoon is a great and welcome addition to the dining scene in Dormont. Our first visit for lunch was excellent. Huge menu but went with Thai Spring rolls and Summer Rolls for appetizers, Pad Thai with Chicken for me and Hawaiian Fried Rice for my husband. And of course Thai Iced Tea. Portions are generous as well as delicious and you can specify how spicy you want your entree. The staff are friendly and attentive. Cant wait to go again to try other items on the menu and since this is within walking distance for us, will likely be doing take out as well.

Great Neighborhood Addition. I love Thai food, but to usually get it, I'd have to make a trip into town, or out to Shadyside. Went there on the 13th, had the pad thai. Great thing about this place is they have a lot of Mock foods (scallops, duck, chicken, etc) so I can take my veggie friend and not worry. Good prices, massive menu, and great atmosphere. Only complaint was my food was a bit spicier than I expected, but that's because I ordered it that way, and will order it a little less spicy next time.