Thai Linda Cafe

I decided to give this place a try since it had mix reviews. Oh boy was it bad! I decided to order there and do take out. The food was not good at all. I never had bad Thai food, and never thought it could be made bad. We ordered crab Rangoon which tasted funny, and my pad Thai had no flavor. Even the thin noodles was bad.  My husband had fried rice which he said was okay. This place is nothing special just save money and go somewhere else.

I would love to support a local restaurant but our experience was so bad that not only do I  not want to return, I think that other folks should think twice about going.

We went there on Christmas night -- it was the only place on the Roscoe strip that was open.  And I totally get that it may not be perfect, or even close to perfect, on Christmas night.  But it was just terrible.  We and everyone else there waited over an hour for our entrees to come out, and the food quality was significantly worse than it was under previous management -- from a significantly fattier beef dish to a much less flavorful noodle dish.  

What really made me angry about the whole situation though is that neither of the two folks working the front of the house came up to anyone and said anything as little as:  Hey, it's Christmas, and we're doing our best but it's slow.  We get it.  But they wouldn't even make eye contact with anyone, much less apologize for it.  It took us getting up to talk to them to actually make them address it, which they basically declined to do even then.  

Without any discussion, they did knock 15% off our bill.  Again, no fronting of the situation, no words at all.  

Can't imagine returning.

There's some really mixed reviews for good old Linda here.  I didn't think she fell into an extreme category - I thought it was a perfectly good, casual spot to grab dinner.  

On a Friday night me and the man were hungry.  I was craving Thai, so we walked down to pay a visit to Linda.  There were several other full tables, and a lot of take-out orders on the front counter waiting to be picked up.  

We were seated, immediately served water and we place our orders for some apps - crab rangoon (my usual) and a beef-wrapped asparagus.  The apps came out pretty quick - and they were good; not great.  

Entrees - we split the chx pad se eew and the lard nar.  The lard nar was served in a deep bowl and was the most soupy I've ever seen it.  I prefer that dish more on the dry side because I don't enjoy eating spoonfuls of gravy - but it did taste good...  The pad se eew was our preferred dish - that had much better texture and flavor.  

By the time we got our bill, we were the only table in the restaurant.  Still, the take-outs and deliveries were steady.  Bonus: they served a delightful little fortune cookie roll - I've never seen that kind, but it was way tastier than a regular fortune cookie.

Was this the best Thai ever?  No.  But it certainly wasn't terrible (or even bad).  We had a nice dinner, the space was calm and quiet - I would come back again for another low-key meal anytime.