Thai Bowl

This restaurant is now closed.

I’m sorry to say that I ate my last plate of Pad Thai at Thai Bowl.
I stopped in and found out that tomorrow is their last day open. This place has been empty most times I go in so it’s no surprise that they are closing. It is a shame that this location can’t substain a restaurant. Since the strip mall was built there have been at least three different restaurant. One after the other closed.
Their food has been consistingly good. The service prompt and friendly. The prices exstremely reasonable for the portion you get.
I guess I have to start my search for good Pad Thai again.

Never having been to Austin, TX… I thought it was all about the BBQ. I had no idea there were eclectic restaurant choices, let alone Asian food.
It took me slightly aback, seeing how tiny and «franchised» it looked. Fortunately, it was owner owned and the food was pretty decent.
Since I wasn’t expecting my usual great Thai places like the ones here in Los Angeles, I was pleasantly surprised how good it was. I ordered the flat noodle beef soup which had a tasty broth. My friend ordered the curry and that was delicious. I can’t say this place lives up to Daisy Mint, but when you’re in Austin and looking for decent Thai food, I wouldn’t pass this place up… Besides. I don’t know if there are any other Thai restaurants nearby.
The service was decent and the place was clean which added more to the appeal of this hole in the wall.

I went in for lunch today and picked up to go for myself and a coworker. She got the spicy cashew and I got the garlic chicken. Both more like chinese dishes, but very good. My coworker was pleased with hers stating that it was much healthier because it wasn’t drowning in sauce. The veggies in my dish were cooked really well. The «hot and sour» soup was really good and plenty. Overall, it was a tone of food and easily two meals. The only thing I did not like was the egg roll as it was pretty mushy inside. I will definitely go back.
Someone below commented on the staff not being friendly, but I had the opposite experience. The girl that was there was super attentive, even though I was getting it to go. She was VERY friendly and made me feel welcome. I heard her talking to other customer as well and appeared to be very eager and helpful. Service was 5 stars. Poor egg roll made it 4.

I can’t remember the last time I had such awful service. Bad, just… bad. The server very obviously hates his job. He never actually said anything to us the entire time we were there. Really, he didn’t. I will feel like an ass if it turns out he is mute or his puppy just died or something, but that would be good to know so I wouldn’t feel so utterly neglected.
We were the only people in the restaurant. As we walked in he handed menus toward us which indicated to me we should pick our own table. We sat there awhile and when he approached the table he just stood there with his pad. Did I mention he didn’t smile the entire time we were there either. He did, however, grunt twice during our stay. Yay, us. Once he brought the food out he did not come back to our table again. Didn’t refill drinks, didn’t ask how our food was, nada. I had to walk to the front desk 3 times to ask for things, one of which was our check.
The saving grace is that most of the food was really good. The tofu pad thai was excellent, and the moo dang was tasty. The sweet and sour chicken not so much. I am used to white meat chicken being used with lots of yummy sweet sauce. The sweet and sour at Thai Bowl was dark meat and very dry. There was a very thin coating of sauce on the chicken, so thin in fact that after it was eaten you couldn’t tell anything with sauce had been on the plate.
The food came out fast which was good. Not the best experience overall. The server seriously needs to reconsider his career choice. Not a single word spoken the whole time, I kid you not.

I am sure my husband would give this at least four stars, because he loved his Pad Thai. My food was A-​Ok (hence three stars). I didn’t care much for the atmosphere – it was okay, but had more of a fast food like atmosphere. If I’m going to drive out this way for Thai food, I’ll go to Thamnak Thai or Muang Thai instead. Much better food, much better atmosphere, same price range.

So I hadn’t really ever found a reason to eat here, Thamnak Thai has always been my go to Thai, and why mess up a good thing? Well out of pure laziness I strolled in here today and left feeling a little miffed.
The «superbowl» soup I ordered was really bland and boring. All of the meats were overcooked except the shrimp, that was almost frozen. The imitation crab was horrible, and I’m not sure what the other «meat» thingy was. The noodles were straight out of the $.25 pack of Ramen noddles. I ordered the kidos the sesame chicken and it was edible, but that’s not Thai food.
On the upside it was cheap, and there was alot of food, so I’ll donate a second star.
I’ll give it one more try, but it’s not looking like it will be anytime soon.

I don’t expect much in the way of atmosphere from your standard Thai or Chinese restaurant. This place was no exception – or was it? In addition to the plain décor and minimalistic service, there was an incredible loud, deep humming noise. I couldn’t tell what it was or where it was coming from. This was more than just a refrigerator compressor running – more like a chorus of compressors.
I got the Pad Thai. The only good thing I can say about it is that I’ve had worse… ugh, bland flavors and just plain unexciting.
Despite a disappointing Pad Thai, the red curry was actually pretty good. Nice and spicy. The coconut milk is the best part.
The fried spring rolls were disappointing and bland.

This is pretty much the best thai food for your buck you will get not only in cedar park, but austin too! The Tom Kha is stellar! The Pad Ke Mao and Yellow Curry are amazing. Hurray for coupons that let us discover this place, which has soon become my thai home. Check it out! Lunch specials are the cheap!

Thai Bowl is one of my absolute favorite restaurant. Luckily, it’s also very close to where I live!
I’ve been searching for a Pad Thai comparable to my favorite back home (Chicago). Thai Bowl is it! So much so, that I’ve been afraid to try anything else!
After ordering Pad Thai about a dozen straight times, I finally broke down and tried the Basil Fried Rice. I didn’t mean to, but as I was walking in, I saw somebody else eating it, and it just looked incredible. The rice looked perfectly, golden brown, and it was loaded with beautiful, fresh vegetables. I could tell that the guy eating it had «kicked it up» a bit from the way he was wiping his forehead after every bite!
«That’s it!» I told my wife. «I have to try something new»
And boy, I was not disappointed! I ordered «Heat Level 2» (out of 3), and it was just right. It even tasted better than it looked!
We started off with the Fresh Rolls. They are so refreshing. The Thai peanut sauce is out of this world.
Great food, great portions and extremely nice people. I’ve been in Austin 3 years, and this is the 3^rd restaurant in this location. I’m glad to see Thai Bowl doing so well and encourage anybody looking for great Thai to give it a try.
P. S. I just found out from the owner today, that they also own Thai Cuisine on West Parmer. I’m going to have to give it a try next!

This was our first THAI joint to try since moving out to Austin. It doesn’t compare to our favorite places in California, but still good enough for us to get our quick Thai fix. I agree with Keri B. when she said it’s not better than Thamnak Thai.
FOOD & PRICING
We ordered THAI TEA and our glasses were TWICE the size given in CA. Why is everything so much bigger here??? I KNOW I AM IN TEXAS! ;) I posted a picture of it if you don’t believe me. Scroll through the pictures and you will see.
With a huge smile on my face I was ready to order my lunch! A friendly waitress came over and brought over 2 small cups for our soup, but nothing was in there. She mentioned that we can walk over to the side station to get our soup. Weird. Why not just serve it to us? I can’t tell if this is sit down restaurant or cafeteria style restaurant. Little bit puzzled, I tried TOM KHA (coconut milk broth with lemongrass, lime leaves with chicken) and it was really watered down. I barely tasted that strong lemongrass flavor that I like so much. And the worst part about it was that IT WASN’T HOT! I really don’t like sipping on my soup when it’s luke warm. I like it HOT, HOT, HOT, but that’s just me. My husband on the other hand liked his. I didn’t. He had the OTHER SOUP (i think it was vegetable soup with tofu). That was also pretty bland and tasteless. Again, LUKE WARM. YUCK! Both soups were… thumbs down for me.
I had my usual PAD KEE MAO. Again, serving size was HUGE, but the noodles were really dry. BUT it came with a lot of sorted veggies which I like. I wish it came with more sauce. That would make it a lot better dish. I didn’t know rather I should hate or love this dish. =)
As I was eating my lunch I realized this — We all know depending on which part of Thai region you come from everyone cooks differently. So perhaps it’s something I can get used to. Doable… in time. Time to taste my hubby’s dish.
He ordered THAI BASIL with GROUND PORK. He loved his for few reasons. Good amount of heat, a lot of sorted veggies which we both like. Most of the time, this dish only comes with basil, green or red bell peppers and that’s it. Again, perhaps that’s they way we are suppose to enjoy it. Chef’s creation and we are more than happy to eat it that way for we know we don’t eat enough veggies in our daily diet. THANK YOU CHEF! Prices were reasonable and of course servings were very generous. I know we’re in Texas now.
DECOR
Bright, clean and updated to please all the modern Unilocalers out there.
SERVICE
Our waitress was nice and friendly, very hard working, yes. The owner/​chef even came out to deliver our food. I thought that was nice of him.
FINAL THOUGHT
Everything IS BIGGER in TEXAS! FOR SURE!!! But is everything BETTER in Texas? Unfortunately, not in this case. Perhaps in time, I might change my mind.
For CA and SF quality, I give 3 stars. For Texas quality, I give 4 stars.

Very impressed with the menu and price. Ordered the cashew chicken lunch special, which comes with rice, soup and a spring roll for about $ 7.
Customers serve themselves soup and can choose from two soups of the day. I chose hot and sour. The other choice was won ton.
The soup was a bit oily, but tasted decent. Lots of chicken and herbs, but a few of the herb twigs made me stop eating the soup about ¾ of the way through.
The entrée was awesome. Decent steamed rice and the tiny spring roll was tasty and crisp. The chicken cashew was fresh, spicy and very good. The chicken was juicy and void of tendon or fatty parts.
The accompanying vegetables were tender and slightly firm – perfect for my taste, but some may think it was undercooked. I think that’s because so many people are used to processed food that just falls apart in your mouth. I like chewing my food.
The décor is sensible and modern. There is ample seating and the high ceilings give the place an airy feel. On the downside, it’s in a strip center with a great view of Wal-​Mart, but if you’re hung up on that aspect stay out of Cedar Park.
The service is friendly, food is fresh and the price is fair. I’ll be back!

It’s been a long time since I’ve had good pad thai.
Too long.
So long that I recently proclaimed, «Mama Fu’s pad thai is not so bad!»
Yep, my pad thai drought has brought me to new levels of desperation.
Enter: Thai Bowl.
Enter: Major disappointment.
From the moment we walked into Thai Bowl, I knew that I would not get my pad thai fix here.
Their pad thai was sweet.
And tasted like… ketchup.
I like ketchup.
But not like this.
No, never like this.
On the upside, I did like their Tom Ka soup, and I thought their lunch prices were great (6.95 for entrée plus soup).
But let’s be honest: unless you lived in Cedar Park, there’s no reason to venture all the way out there for a cheap, mediocre lunch.
Nope, no reason at all.

This is one of the better Asian places in Cedar Park. The Pad Thai is really good and I think their spice rating is hotter than most places so be conservative on that. You also get really good soup with the entrees and they always have some interesting selections.
I also agree with another poster, one of the guys who works there is the sweetest, most polite server ever. After a long day at work, he makes stopping in for take out so pleasant and easy. You won’t be disappointed if you stop by and try it.

Thai Bowl is a great little restaurant with effusively friendly service and fresh, well-​executed Thai Dishes. The Pad Thai was the best I’ve had in the Austin area. With a subtle, not overly-​sweet sauce, and really fresh sprouts and onions, this is just a great dish. The portion was smaller than Thamnhak’s, but the flavors were a little cleaner and fresher. Green and red curries were nice with a solid medium to high heat simmer.
I recommend a visit just to say hello to the main server /​cashier /​busser. This is the friendliest, humble, polite waiter guy I’ve ever encountered outside of a 5 star restaurant. He’s so darn nice that you just want Thai Bowl to do well. And it does.
Also, you may want to order carry out, as the dining room is pretty spartan. There is brisk carry-​out foot traffic in this small strip mall space which detracts from the dine-​in experience.

I would say 3.5 stars actually. Hate to be a downer but if I hadn’t been expecting so much from the reviews it might have been better. The food was good, yes. The «staff» which consisted of one very pleasant, very hard-​working guy waiting and busing tables and a cook, were very prompt and courteous. But better than Thamnak? I think not. I got my usual Pad Kee Mao and when compared there’s no way Thai Bowl is better. They have the small rice noodles when I prefer the large flat ones. They don’t have broccoli which is how I convince myself that this is good for me. The soup of the day was decent (a hot and sour variety, heavy on the sour) but I wouldn’t order it if it didn’t come with the lunch plates. Hubby’s basil fried rice was very tasty, but while we both ordered a «level 2» heat, his was not at all hot. He had to add chile.
So yes, they are good. And yes I hope they do well in this location. But when I have a superior restaurant a half mile from my house, don’t think I’ll choose them unless I happen to be at Wal-​mart (read: never).

This might be the best Thai restaurant in the Austin area.
We had a fabulous meal there a couple nights ago, full of flavors I can still taste in the back of my mind. It started auspiciously as we walked in and the young Thai waiter beamed a big smile at us before the door had even closed. Not a waiter’s «I can’t wait for another tip» smile, but a real honest-​to-​Buddha from the heart smile; no mistaking one of those.
We started with the Som Tum Thai, which for me is de rigueur at any restaurant purporting to be Thai, though many places here in town don’t serve it. Usually this green papaya salad comes with crappy little dried shrimp, but Thai Bowl wisely leaves those out and adds more green beans and peanuts than normal to the mix, and it works wonderfully. This dish is gorgeously spicy and full of vitality; I like a Thai chef not afraid to lay on the hot spices if they complement the natural flavors of the ingredients, and this fits that bill. Green papaya also has more enzymes than almost any other food on the planet, so the mouth heat is followed by a palpable feeling of health and good cheer; a fine combination, hard to beat.
The massamun curry that followed was easily the best I’ve had in Austin, and I am a curry freak; my girlfriend oohed and aahed her way through it, and I was amazed at how many subtle herbal notes there were, nothing overpowering anything else. A perfect match of sweet and spicy, my favorite mix and one of the things that makes Thai my favorite food. The carrots and potatos were sliced thick and perfectly cooked, the shrimp plump and juicy (instead of fishy and rubbery as is so often the case), the tofu full of the flavors of the curry plus its own inimitable texture, and overall it was one of the tastiest things I’ve eaten in Austin this year.
We’d had a late lunch so weren’t that hungry and followed our shared app and entrée with a shared dessert, a perfectly done sticky rice with mango that, like the other dishes, was a cut above its average cousin in other Thai places. I had to fight to get my fair share and finally gave up and let my happily sugar-​rushing gal finish it, down to the last drip of coconut cream.
The entire meal was lifted another notch by the waiter, whose welcoming smile was proved genuine by his incredibly attentive service. He literally ran at one point when we asked him to get us another napkin, happy to serve people who had just told him how nice it is to be served by someone who clearly loves to serve, and does it right. We asked his name and he smiled shyly and said, «Pete».
If we could take Pete with us to every other restaurant, we would.
What a difference a truly kind and present waiter makes!
The curry was so good that I asked to meet the chef (it was just before closing time and we were the last customers, though word is clearly spreading as a number of take-​out orders were picked up right until 9:30). He came out and proved to be as genuine and friendly as Pete. He’s one of the owners, name of Woody, and the good vibe of the food is obviously due to the good vibe of the chef. We discussed his recipes (the massamun is sweetened with palm sugar, not honey as I’d guessed; it adds a really unique tang), and he was clearly happy that his cooking had made us so happy. That’s the type of guy I like to give my food dollars to.
We noticed that there is a slogan inlaid stylishly into the concrete floor: «Walk the healthy path». Not many restaurants care enough about their customers’ health to do something like that; combined with the oustanding quality of the food and the very fair prices — the salad was 5.95 (often 7.95 in town, and this one was larger), the curry was 8.95 and also enough for two — it all adds up to one of the best meals for the money we’ve had this year, and we eat out about five times a week.
Between the incredibly friendly service, simple but elegant décor (high black ceilings, muted hanging lamps, red trim, and an open and comfortable feel – not bad for a little strip mall joint!), fair prices, and excellent food, I’d have to say Thai Bowl is easily the equal of Satay, Titaya Thai, the downtown Thai Passion, and Cedar Park’s other fine Thai spot, Thamnak Thai… and probably better, all told.
This place deserves to become enormously popular, and we hope it does. It’s worth the drive from my house downtown to Cedar Park, and the only other place I can think of in the area worth that kind of trip is Hudson’s…and Thai Bowl offers considerably more value and just about as much flavor.
Best of luck to Woody and Pete: thanks for one of the most thoroughly enjoyable meals we’ve ever had in this town… or rather, out of it!
[7/​13/​09: Took a friend there last night – who makes very fine curries himself – and he too was blown away by the massamun, calling it the best in town. The red curry was also
A+ and the papaya salad was even bigger and spicier (did I mention the big portions for the money?). Lovely.]

That was a Japanese restaurant before. Don’t know what happened to them. Now it’s a Thai restaurant. I worried if a foreign flavor restaurant will do well in such a suburb. Don’t they only want chicken wings and beers?
The menu price is very reasonable. $ 7 per dish at lunch. It comes with a soup too. I brought Tom Yum soup for myself from their big soup tank.
The red curry dish tastes pretty good. The Rose Bowl noodle looks like Vietnamese Phở. But it doesn’t taste as good as Phở. First the noodle texture is not good, Second it’s lack of flavors in soup.
They also have Express bowl which looks like American Chinese food. And it’s $ 5 per dish. Very good price.
We ordered Thai tea, $ 1.75 each. It’s lack of milk and adding too much sugar.
For dessert, Mungbean custard doesn’t taste like custard. It tastes like a coconut cake to me. It’s just OK. Next time I will order sticky rice and mango.

I’m in LOVE with Thai Bowl’s food! These guys know how to cook Thai. I have had the Tom Kah soup (which i’m picky about) and it was divine, with galangal, bit of kaffir lime~ delicate and authentic flavor. The Thai ice tea made my day. Food is affordable and the staff is attentive and nice.
I came back for the lunch special, had Lemongrass Soup (beautiful), and yes! the Pad Thai was awesome. Best of all, crushed hot chili pepper is right there at the table so you can doctor your own!
So excited to try everything, especially the desserts: mung bean custard, tapioca with taro root. Lets keep his place open. please!!!

Wal Mart Thai? When I saw Thai Bowl going in across from wallyworld, I figgered it’d be some chain crap.
Far from it. This is definitely in the top 2 Thai restaurants in the Greater Cedar Park metro area. Everything my lunch pals and I have tried has been well-​prepared, fresh, and flavorful.
My compass for Thai — Green Curry with Tofu. They passed the test with flying colors (the only thing that would make it better is to have thai chilis marinated in fish sauce on the table — but they brought something similar out when I asked). Soups are tasty and cheap. Service is still getting worked out, but we go early for lunch and it hasn’t been a problem at all. I’m going back tomorrow — who’s in?