Mint Leaf

You want to dance good salsa/​timba, come here! it’s either Friday or Saturday nights. Good atmosphere and crowd. Wish it was a little bigger for more dancing though. =)

I do not understand why this place is getting bad reviews. Sure, if they do not accommodate you on certain things (like your kids), I can understand.
I was there a while back, probably, like 6 months ago and had the lemongrass Chicken claypot. It was amazing! Very flavorful. I spent over 4 years living in Asia and know good food when I taste it! and this was damn good! I remember joking with the waitress to give me the recipe… LOL

WOO HOO!
Unilocal ROCKS!!! We walked by the other day and this place was closed.
She deserved this and I don’t feel bad at all. May she end up working at the DMV where she belongs.

Well, after trying for quite some time, I gave up trying to go here when they were open.
From the reviews I read here, I guess that was the smart thing.
It appears that this restaurant has succumbed to what I call the curse of the Palermo. Chicken Ranch and now Mint Leaf join the dead pool.
Three’s the charm, let’s see a good replacement!

Update: I just noticed this afternoon that the Mint Leaf is closed, with this vague notice on the window: «Closed for vacation. Sorry for inconvenient.»
No indication of when or if it’s re-​opening after the «vacation.»
The trend of the reviews, including mine (9÷7÷07) probably give the best explanation.

I’m surprised with Mint Leaf’s bad reviews on Unilocal.I made a mental note as I was leaving the restaurant to recommend it and come back. Hmm…
My friend and I did the typical University stroll in search of a dinner spot. We were feeling «Asian» and saw that Mint Leaf was crowded and had a nice warm feel even with the open window/​doors. We decided to give it a shot.
To start, we shared the Thai basil soup. It was on the better end of average. I then ordered the Lemongrass chicken (claypot) and it was delicious. I brought the left overs home (it was such a huge portion for less than $ 10) and my dad even thought it was yummy. My friend had the drunken noodles and that was equally delicious.
If you’re looking for a low-​key restaurant on University, I’d definitely recommend giving Mint Leaf a try. It’s quick, relatively inexpensive, and tasty.

This is one of the worst Thai restaurant I have ever been to for lunch. I think this place stays in business by drawing in innocent passerbys who have not read the Unilocal reviews on this place and are attracted by its wide open air doors at its prime location across the street from the Apple Store.
Price
This restaurant is extremely expensive for this type of restaurant. My lunch ran me over $ 40 for just two people when I could have gotten better Thai food for half the price down the street. They also nickeled and dimed us for the rice at $ 1.50 per person.
Food
The $ 4 Thai Iced Tea tasted awful. The fresh spring rolls were mediocre. The yellow chicken curry was flavorless. The portions were small, and this was the dinner portions. They said the lunch portions were half the size. If that is the case, then there would be nothing, except a couple scraps of meat and potatoes.
Service
I was so angry by the bad service, I did not leave any tip because they had already ripped me off with their outrageous prices. I did not realize they had a lunch menu on the back of the menu until after I ordered. When asked the lady why I was charged the dinner price when there was a lunch price, she said that it was because I specifically pointed at the dinner price instead of the lunch price at the time of ordering. I felt that I was tricked and misled by the lady in charge. In addition, they brought us the check while we were still eating. Also, they were cleaning the table while I was signing the receipt. In general, the servers were just plain rude and wanted you to get out of there as soon as possible.
In conclusion, I will never go here again and would not recommend this restaurant to anyone. Horrible service, price, and quality. This is not a restaurant that is representative or on par with other restaurants in the downtown PA area.

My boyfriend and I went to this place for a while. The phở was ok. I am vietnamese and the owner and I said hello everytime we ate there. Shes thai and speaks both vietnamese and thai.
The last time I was there she was so rude and I will never never never eat there again. We came in and wanted to to sit in a booth. She told us they where reserved for someone else. The entire time we ate there no one sat at the booth. My boyfriend asked her while we where paying for our meal about the booths again.
She started speaking very loudly and was being very defensive about it, telling us she promised to save it for someone and her hands where ties. She was so rude.
DONT WASTE YOUR TIME HERE!

ugh! should’ve read the review before i went! i went there w/​some colleagues whom i haven’t seen in awhile. since the décor of this place was decently modern for a vietnamese restaurant (well, sort of chinese if you look @ the lunch menu), i’ve decided to stop by here sometime. last week was that time.
i ordered the Tofu Khee Mao, which is described as: «Fried tofu sauteed in minced garlic and fresh chili» on the website. this was off of the lunch menu since i thought that this dish would come out fast. i wanted some protein in my meal, so i ordered this meal. i thought that it would come w/​some other veggies. however, they were SERIOUS about the ingredients. it was literally only fried tofu w/​garlic. well… never mind. they didn’t give me chili. BUT THEY DID GIVE ME SOMEONE’S HAIR!!! i told the lady who took the food back. there was one lady who was apologetic and told me that they’ll make me another one, which i appreciated then there was the other lady who brought out my dish who seemed a bit huffy. sorry, but it wasn’t my hair! my hair’s not that thick and fried-​looking!
i’m really grossed out thinking about it. they really should’ve gave me the dish for free. however, they still charged me. i just hope that they didn’t spit in my food or just gave me the dish i returned minus the hair. i get shivers thinking about it!
since university avenue is full of nice restaurants, i would recommend skipping this one the next time you’re on this popular lane.

Update: This place closed down in the end. There is now a Korean restaurant in that location.
As many other reviewers have said, the service at this place is a joke. The food itself was tasty enough, but front-​of-​house was comical.

Ugh!
I see I’m not the first to give this place a bad review. Nor do I think I will be the last.
In short, reasons to hate this place:
— bad service, took forever to sit down
— bad service, 1 person waited forever to get there food while everyone else waited
— bad service, impossible to get attention, they need more staff
— bad service (save the best for last), they charged us an automatic 18% tip even though we had 5 people (the menu says that 18% charged automatically for 6 people). when i asked the owner about it, she first said it was tip. when i told her the menus say that it’s for groups of 6 or more, she said that the menus were «old».
That was the final insult. We had crappy service throughout all of lunch and the last thing I wanted to do was leave ANY tip. But then I was forced to leave 18%! I probably could’ve fought more but didn’t want to. I can understand penny pinching practices if you’re a $ 1 chinese restaurant, but I felt completely swindled!
I will be boycotting this place forever. There are so many better options on University and I can’t stand people who run a dishonest business like this. I hope they go out of a business because it’s a nice spot and reputable people deserve to be here.

I found myself on university ave. and saw Mint Leaf. The place looked nice (large open windows next to the street) so I walked in and had almost the exact same experience as everyone else — the owner was evil. Enough has been said already about the wicked witch of University Avenue but I couldn’t help but wonder what her problem is. Isn’t Thailand the land of smiles?
It was funny to read all the other write-​ups this morning though.

Not the best Vietnamese I have ever had, but definitely not the worst. My drunken noodles were flavorful and a good amount of spice (although a little spicier would have been appreciated). Nice version of green papaya salad.
The service however, was so bad it became comical. Within a couple of minutes of being seated my sister and I saw two groups storm out of the 30% full restaurant due to poor service. The couple next to us started laughing hysterically after the waitress mocked them when asking for no ice in their water. I was denied a Vietnamese iced coffee, although I could see that there was plenty of coffee due to our seat’s proximity to the kitchen. And to top it off, when my sister saw an item on the lunch specials that is not on the regular menu (grilled chicken and prawns vermicelli) the waitress acted as if my sis could neither read nor understand the concept of specials.
Believe it or not, I might actually go back because of the entertainment and okay food.

Wow… I was about to Unilocal «All Noodle Heads Unite!» but then I read all the scathing reviews. The mighty metal sword I would have held over my head is more like a limp noodle now.
But I have to say, Mint Leaf has some really good noodle dishes! Some of the other dishes (shaking beef, calamari salad, soups) have been quite good, too. The flavor and texture of the meals here beat Thaiphoon hands down, and I prefer to walk the several blocks to eat here than the one block to Thaiphoon.
I’ve never run into «The Evil One.» I believe I have been served by the same person as everyone else has, but she has only been nice and smiley to me and my guests. And my guests comprise a variety of ethnicities. I hope I never run into The Evil One because I would miss going to one of my favorite places for noodles. If you like noodles, don’t be scared and try Mint Leaf at least once.
Half to one star gets docked for the lack of A/​C and the incredible noise — both due to the open restaurant front. (It seems like every delivery truck in Palo Alto has to make a stop in front of Mint Leaf.) Best time to come here is before the lunch rush and for dinner as soon as the sun sets behind the building across the street.

Based on the other reviews, its good that I don’t have kids and we came on a slow Sunday were we were on of two tables at the time. The lady with glasses seem pretty nice and the food was served pretty quickly. The vegetarian rolls were wrapped tight and were nice and crisp. We also tried the Sea Bass, which was good, but not great. The real star was the Pad Thai. You wouldn’t expect this from a place that claims Vietnamese and Thai, but it was one of the best Pad Thais that I’ve had throughout the Bay Area. It wasn’t soggy, it wasn’t oily, nor was it overly sweet like some other places. They had the right amount of peanuts, chilis, and tofu. I just wished they slapped in more Prawn, which they did on the 2^nd order we placed to go.
If you come in with low expectations then you can’t really leave disappointed!

If you have kids, this is NOT the place for you. My 2.5 year old daughter and I have weekly lunch dates together and we made the mistake of dining here. The owner was rude and abrupt. I politely asked if they could make a small bowl of plain noodles (which I would happily pay for) for my daughter and she refused. Then the owner proceeded to take away my daughter’s chopsticks saying that she couldnt’ use them for safety reasons. Hmmm? My daughter is learning to use chopsticks and is quite proficient. Oh well.
This was definitely NOT the kind of experience we were looking for. Please consider taking your business elsewhere.

We shared an order of drunken noodles and a forgettable appetizer.
We got in around 1:30, tail end of lunch hour. Owner glared at us. We ordered. Owner glared at us. We got our orders. Owner got our check almost immediately, and then proceeded to… yup, you guessed it. Glare at us. We talked and ate. Owner glared at us. We kept talking. Owner glared at us.
We finally left, and the part that makes me angriest is that we still gave the owner a reasonable 15% tip. She talked to us as if we had no right to be in her restaurant — WTF?!
I don’t know what it is about Palo Alto, but the people in retail in this area (particularly University Ave.) seem to have a lot of issues to work through.

I am so glad to read other reviews proving that my friend and I were not the only recipients of poor service from this place. Fortunately, we left before our meal started. Here’s what transpired:
After being seated, they handed us the menu. Unaware of the list of available lunch specials, we ordered a la carte dishes thinking that the dish came with rice and soup since another customer in the restaurant was feasting on something like that. When we placed our orders, we were told that rice was separate. We didn’t bother clarifying so we included rice in our order. For beverage, we chose tea and were told how much each glass of tea costs and how it’s not free. OK – that simple ordering experience was both confusing and uncomfortable enough, we were just glad it was done with.
After a few moments, we decided to ask another server about the rice and entrée bussiness and it became apparent that our original server didn’t point out the lunch special menu found at the back of the menu. You’d think she’d at least point that out the lunch specials for our benefit. Of course not, because that meant a smaller order $$ amount. Needless to say, we said we were going to change our order. Note that no more than 5 minutes had passed yet and we were told that it was «too late.»
No – it wasn’t too late and we just got up and left. I guess it wasn’t a very encouraging sign when one of our supposed clean paper napkins was stuck together with dried up curry sauce. Ewww.
I can’t recommend this place at all because I don’t believe it’s a good thing for the owner/​waitress to purposely mislead customers about the menu items and also be so rude in the process. There are plenty of restaurants in Palo Alto and this is one that I wouldn’t consider ever going back to.

The owner is reminiscent of the seinfeld soup nazi without the charm or great food to back her up. I am SHOCKED that this place is still in business…
My sister-​in-​law niece and nephew frequented mint leaf over the summer when I was unemployed and had time for leisurely 5:00 dinners. The kids loved the pad thai at mint leaf and I dug the soups and some eggplant dish. The owner was always a bit grumpy but never accosting or unreasonable, until early august.
We went in early evening, as our weekly routine dictated, and were quickly seated. The server who seated us got us water but no menus and after failed communication, we realized she did not speak english. No biggie, the owner was coming over, «what you want?!?» um, we don’t have menus, but we usually get the pad thai. «pad thai, okay, three pad thais. Now, we’re pesca vegetarians and are fine with the shrimp and tofu, but wouldn’t be able to eat any chicken, etc. My sister-​in-​law inquired, «is there only one pad thai on the menu?» «yes, only one pad thai». Assuming that was the usual shrimp and tofu version, we agreed to the three orders.
you guessed it, the food came out and all had chicken in addition to the shrimp and tofu. We apologetically explained (like we needed to be apologetic) that we don’t meat and cannot accept the food. Oh, she lost it. I was a little scared, seriously. She begins yelling, «What do I do with all this food?!? You want me to throw it away!!!» My sister-​in-​law attempted to explain that we always order the same thing and that she had asked if it was the only one, you know she tried to reason — does not work with this women.
After a few minutes of her yelling, shoving the plates forcibly onto our table, I took my niece and nephew outside. They were already traumatized and it was obvious this woman was not going to compromise or act in a normal, respectable manner.
Never going back. Each time we walk by, my niece proclaims, «there’s the mean lady!»

Just went here for drinks and a nosh to get everyone together before going to Miyake. Unfortunately one of the serrvers kept giving us silverware despite repeated attempts to communicate that we didn’t need any. When the other server or owner came out she complained about how hard it is to get help that can understand English. It was funny, but I don’t see many other places having that big of an issue.
Anyway, food was ok, not too expensive. Nothing super amazing. I’d go again, but I’m not goig to go out of my way for it.