E-San Thai Cart

Friendly service. Ordered pad Thai, medium spicy. I am not super sensitive but the medium was extremely spicy. It also came with a lemon wedge, not lime, which seemed odd. Too spicy to truly judge flavor.

A decent place to go for a weekday lunch. I happen to work close by and go hear a fair few times so I thought it’s worth a review. The dude who’s at the cashier and takes your orders is a pretty fun guy, and you might just have a good conversation with him if there’s no crowd. But, speaking of crowds, this place is almost always crowded and you tend to wait for 10+ minutes for cart food. How’s the food? Average to above average. I’ve found little doses of chili powder in my tofu/​pineapple fried rice on some occasions and the taste isn’t something out of this world. The portion sizes are awesome, mind you, and splitting a lunch is not the worst idea!
TL;DR good food, good service, great portion size for the money

I ordered the pineapple fried rice with tofu, but they were out of pineapple, so they used mango instead, which worked out wonderfully. The portion size was huge and I loved it. It was probably meant to last for a few meals, but oh well, I ate it all!
The lady was very nice and it was cooked very quickly!
Big portions, fast service, nice people… Nothing else I could want from a food cart!

Great cart option if you happen to work in the outer regions of «downtown.» You know where I mean — Pioneer Square is a hike and a half, but you’re not quite on the PSU campus. Thankfully the cluster of carts across the street from Hotel Modera is here to help out us poor saps.
Tops amongst these carts is E-​San Thai. They are full-​on friendly and do their best to get your spicing level just right. When I can’t get Thai basil fried rice off the brain, this is where I go. If I manage to find a co-​worker willing to split the meal, all the better. Portions are enormous.
I really need to stop being so shocked by the value and quality of food I get from a cart given that I’ve been eating from food carts for years now, but this is one of those places where you take your first bite and just pause a minute and wonder how the hell they pull that off in such a small space.

I’m not sure why there wasn’t a page for this location of E-​San, so I made one. Service and food can vary by location so I didn’t want to rate unfairly.
E-​San has a pretty loyal legion of fans. Most seem to flock to the mega-​pod at 9^th and Alder. This location is way closer to where I live, so I try to stop here after school. Problem is, they’re almost always closed early.
Today I finally caught them before they closed. Got a very basic Pad Thai with Tofu, medium spicy.
The lady who took my order rang me up as the other woman in the cart was eating her own meal. Then the lady who was eating proceeded to cook my meal. I get that it’s a food cart, not a 5 star restaurant. But is washing your hands that hard?
My Pad Thai was kinda bland. I got a TON of food for $ 6, so I feel bad leaving an average review. The ladies were both very nice too. But I’m paying for the food, and when I order Pad Thai, I expect some sour salty spicy flavor. I got a big portion of mediocre food. Even my lime wedge was sad.
This is a good value if you don’t crave bold flavor. I’ll try them again, but I’ll order something different next time. If I manage to catch them before they close.

In a challenge to myself to venture out of my comfort zone to eat at new places, I decided to try this VERY busy food cart.
It’s amazing!
I tend to stick to the Curry section of the menu. I can’t pronounce the menu items, so I just call it the Curry Section (items #42−44-ish). I’ve yet to find something that isn’t addicting.
Ask if they have the fish oil sauce with peppers. That alone is worth a trip to the cart.
Oh… And they’re open late, so if I missed them for lunch, there is always dinner (and less wait too).

THAI TO GO
Ordered the Pad See Ew with pork… medium spicy. Wok hay (wok seasoning and skills) was superb. Properly oiled wok is essential so that the kee mao noodle doesn’t stick to the wok’s surface. For sure, I’ll be back for more authentic and tasty Thai.

It’s funny how the same cart can have such wildly different results depending on location! E-​San is my favorite thai cart near my work (on 10^th and Alder) — but when I came to this one, my go-​to meal (Pad Kee Mao) wasn’t nearly as good as when I normally get it! They don’t have shrimp options (only chicken and tofu) and the Thai Iced Tea I got was served to me in a Pepsi drink container like you get at McDonalds (and was so gross I had to throw it away!) The food was DECENT, but I would definitely not go back to this location — I’ll still with E-​San on 10^th an Alder! However, the service was great — really nice, but doesn’t make up for the rest!

I had high hopes trying this food cart, saddly, I was greatly disappointed. I believe E-​San has a good reputation, so maybe my experience was a one time problem, who knows.
Anyway, I tried to Pad Se Ew. The noodles were good, the flavor, middle of the road, the floating oil in the dish, well, they used about 10 times the necessary oil in the wok and it made it to my dish. The other thing that turned me off, while I’m ok with broccoli, I really don’t like the leafy parts of it in my meal.
This is a new, small food cart pod. While this meal wasn’t the worst Thai I’ve eatten, I think I get a better value and flavor from a nearby Food Cart Pod.
I may try this one again, but if I were to get a similar result, I wouldn’t be back.

Re-​located from Broadway and now lives at 6^th and Columbia.
Definitely the go-​to Thai cart. My co-​workers and I were on a three week mission of finding where the cart moved to, and now that we’ve found it we take the extra walk to get here. I’ve tried the 10^th ave cart and it just wasn’t as good, so I’m okay with making the journey.