Esan Thai Restaurant

Easily the second worst restaurant experience I've ever had.

Came in with a fairly large group of people--around 12. The waitress brought water for everyone and took our order. From that moment on, it went downhill--fast! First order came out in about 30 minutes. The last order...well it never came out. Why? Because I had to cancel it after waiting for over an hour and a half.

The waitress came up after the second to last meal went out 10 minutes prior and said "Oh...have you not gotten your food yet? What did you order?" As a former restaurant employee, I easily know this translated as "Your food hasn't been started yet, do you still want it?" No...I didn't want it. Our group would have been more than content waiting longer to get the meals all at the same time. The fact that it took nearly 1 hour for all of them to come out is appalling to say the least.

Unfortunately, that was the least of our worries. After our initial waters, the waitress brought 3 carafes of water (which we guzzled pretty quickly). From that moment on, we did not get one refill of beverage in the 2.5 hours we were there. One of my friends ordered a dish as a "3" - being the medium spiciness. They have decent tolerance for spice, but clearly they felt overpowered by the spice. Another friend of mine ordered a "3" as well and said he could barely taste the spice.

As a result, my friend who had the too-spicy food ordered a side of rice--which never came. Upon checkout, they insisted she pay for the rice. It took more discussion than needed to clear up that matter. Even though it is industry standard for groups over 8 to get auto-tipped, none of the staff at Esan Thai deserved a single cent. A quick glance around the room showed we were not the only ones having a terrible experience. We saw one patron return her food. The waitresses looked incredibly lost and incompetent. Clearly the cooks did not know how to properly prepare the food nor did they do so in a timely manner.

To add insult to injury, upon leaving the facility, I happened to noticed that they were still displaying a health and safety inspection that was expired--albeit only a few days.

I never plan to step foot in this establishment again. I plan on advocating to my friends in the area to avoid Esan as well. There are other options for Thai in Bloomington and the appalling service all around warrants this critic's harsh review. In a city with so many options, it is almost amazing to me to understand why Esan still manages to operate.

What are people talking about? Favorite? Best? In my yelp book, this is not thai food. I don't know what the flavors were. Maybe my taste is americanized but I was not happy. It did not satisfy my thai craving. And it's EXPENSIVE! Delivery + tip all added up to WAY too much for ONE person. And it took forever.

I gave them a couple stars because they deliver. And I looked at my fellow yelpers to get an idea of the food and I was let down. I won't be ordering it again. I'm sticking to My Thai, even if I have to go get it.

i love panang curry. i also love pad thai. esan thai does them well.

they definitely looked different than any other that i've had but who says any dish HAS to look a particular way? my brother took me here saying that its his favorite thai restaurant on campus and he definitely didnt disappoint.

he did warn me that the service was slow and mediocre, which unfortunately, served to be true. regardless my family had a great dinner! we totally inhaled everything. (we also ordered another spicy stir fry dish)

i would definitely stop by again when im visiting my brother!