Thai Tara (Reported Closed)

Doesn't Recommend

purple29penguin

Joined 6 years ago

Worst Restaurant I've been to. I love Thai food, so when a friend suggested we try Thai Tara I was really excited to see what they had to offer. We were seated promptly and our waiter seemed to be a nice, conversational guy. We placed our orders and we got our appetizers in a good amount of time. Unfortunately, after that everything else went downhill. We kept waiting and waiting for our food, and when we asked our waiter if our food would be out soon, he began to ignore us. We waited for our food for an hour and a half. The food was definitely subpar. After we finished eating, it took the waiter another thirty minutes to bring us our checks. Our check had gratuity added to it even though we were a smaller group than the minimum group size for added gratuity (which was stated on the menu and door). One of my friends questioned the waiter about this since a. we were a small group, b. the service was horrible, and c. the food was less than appetizing. The waiter again ignored us and even pretended he didn't understand English even though two hours ago he understood it perfectly well. When my friend asked the cashier the same question, the manager was brought out. Instead of trying to be understanding, the manager actually began to raise her voice at my friend. Not wanting to cause a scene, my friend simply told her to charge it. A few days later, two of my friends found out they had been overcharged at the restaurant. Thinking it was simple mistake, they called the restaurant and were treated very rudely until one of them threatened to report the restaurant. This was a horrible experience which I know not everyone goes through, but it is still horrible.

Someone mentioned, treating the staff poorly will get you poor service. As a former waitress, I never treat waitstaff badly, and neither do any of my friends.

Recommends

marypop

Joined 6 years ago

Best Thai in town, and I've tried them all. Get over the service issue!. Getting straight to the point, this is the best Thai in Austin. I eat there frequently, and the food averages out to Excellent ? the worst version of anything I?d ever had was overly spicy pad thai (which was still delicious, though HOT as hel! since I ordered it ?extra spicy?).

There are a spate of recent reviews here ? all sounding *exactly* the same and posted on the same day ? that sound to me like single crowd who went there together, didn?t like it, and decided to exaggerate (either that or a competing thai restaurant is trying to slam TT). Don?t listen to them. Read the other reviews, go there, and decide for yourself. I recommend the corn and yam pancakes in additional to the usual suspects.

Recommends

occludedfuture

Joined 6 years ago

Excellent food, great prices, service is nice if you are nice.. Wonderful thai food. Beautiful view of downtown on the back porch. Prices are very resonable and portions definitely well size.

NOTE: If you treat the staff poorly, they will treat you poorly. Don't forget the golden rule people!

I see a lot of reviewers here dumping on the service but if you are respectful everything comes out FINE!

Doesn't Recommend

nagin

Joined 6 years ago

psycho service. So my friends and, we put in our orders at 7 and we didnt get our food until an hour later. when i asked the waiter after waiting 30minutes what was happening with our food he laughed in my face and then walked away from us. When we finally got our food it turned out to be not that great at all, i seriously had so much better at Madame Ma'am. So we have been there an hour just waiting for our food and then it took them 30minutes on top of that to bring our checks out. They charged us gratuity for service they did not provide. When we told them we werent going to pay that but we will pay for the food the manager came out and screamed at us in harsh tones. She claimed that since we waited an hour in her restaurant we should pay the gratuity. We walked out of the resaurant and she ran after us and started yelling at us in the middle of 6th street. We actually had a crowd form around us. It was not cool. Seriously guys dont go here, the food is bad and the service as you have read is not any better. Oh then when i got home she over charged my account even though i didnt authorize it.

Doesn't Recommend

fishyfood

Joined 6 years ago

Thai traumatized. We waited over an hour for our food to come out (7:15pm-8:30), without apologies or explanations for the delay. The food was greasy and loaded with msg even though the waiter bragged that they only use the freshest ingredients and claimed they were better than other Austin thai places. No one came to refill our waters until after we received our bill. Since we had a group of 5, we were charged 18% gratuity, which we did not feel was deserved. The owner rudely yelled at us in the middle of restaurant, 'You sit there so long and you don't pay tip? Thank you!!!!'. She actually yelled at us for sitting at our table for so long! As if we just felt like waiting over an our for food. She then follows us out of the restaurant and proceeds to harass us on the street. Later, we found that all our cards had been charged extra. When we called them to ask about the extra charges they claimed it was a computer glitch.

Doesn't Recommend

txsweetheart

Joined 6 years ago

the place from hell. If you want good Thai food, go anywhere else. You can go to Madam Ma'am's and get better service and food for a cheaper price. After ordering, we waited an hour for our food to be brought to us. After complaining the manager and asking her to please not add gratuity since we had waited an hour for our food and had barely been waited on, she argued with us. No self-respecting manager should ever argue with a customer. We decided to leave instead of arguing with her. She then CHASED us out of the restaurant and proceeded to scream at one of our friends. THEN, after checking all of our charges on our cards, we all realized that she had gone back and charged our cards extra. I called the restaurant to complain and they said that every single one of those charges was a computer glitch. Please avoid this place at all costs....

Recommends

nytaste

Joined 7 years ago

Authentic thai cuisine with a perfect thai iced tea blend. This restaurant offers dishes with decent proportions with authentic thai spice tastes. I tried the pad thai, panang and have been impressed. The spicier dishes have that rich thai spice that gradually burns your throat down to your stomache, which is nice. The service was quite decent and pleasant. Plus, they got the thai ice teas just right with just enough milk. The price is just right: not too much, not too little. Definitely recommended!

Recommends

smittenkittendd

Joined 7 years ago

NEVER AGAIN. My friends and I met for my birthday on Saturday 12/9 and it took 3 hours to get out of there. They didn't have menus, cheese rolls, or service. After an hour and a half of waiting for our food, we were told they were out of broccoli. After waiting 2.5 hours, the food finally arrived, only to have my friend pull out a really long hair out of her meal. Apparently they have hair, but no broccoli.

It was horrible--at the very least they could have let us know what was going on with the wait. There were people arriving, eating, and leaving all around us, yet they offered no explanation to us at all. We're reasonable people, but this was just outrageous.

Go anywhere but here.

Doesn't Recommend

answer42

Joined 7 years ago

Service is *horrific*, never going back. I went with a group of friends to Thai Tara on a Friday night in December 2006 and the service was appalling. This is a very small restaurant, yet we waited seated for *over an hour* before someone came to take our order. The food came out of the kitchen a dish at a time (yes, this is common in Asia, but a 15 minute wait from the first dish to the last is unacceptable by American standards).

We had several fruit flies buzzing around the table, I saw at least one land in our food.

As a preemptive strike we asked for the check the moment the last dish arrived, however this request was ignored. Almost all of the party paid cash then left.

I am never going back.

(Ratings: Good prices, average food, horrific service)

Recommends

Contributor

Joined 10 years ago

This casual Thai cafe features classic dishes as well as unusual fare.. In Short
Thai Tara opts for a simple, basic decor. Pastel peach-colored walls clash a bit with the gray, matte tables and angular black metal chairs. A large bar curves around the center of the restaurant. Veggie dishes include the tofu satay: spongy cubes ensconed in a puffy batter and mixed with a spicy peanut sauce. Bangkok shrimp is deep-fried with mozzarella and seaweed. Desserts include chilled lychee nuts served over ice.