Khao Sarn
“One frequently orders the shrimp pad thai and she always squeals with delight when the delivery arrives.”
“I recommend the drunken noodle with vegetarian duck, but the currys are also really flavorful.”
“Pad Thai, curry puffs and coconut fried ice-cream are also some of my faves, but mix and match- your taste buds will amaze you!”
Khao Sarn
Delivery: Yes
Take-out: Yes
Bike Parking: Yes
Wheelchair Accessible: Yes
Good for Kids: Yes
Good for Groups: Yes
Waiter Service: Yes
Price range.
$$ Price range $11-30
8 reviews
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Neighborhood go to Thai spot. The lunch specials are good portions and start at 7$. :).
Pretty solid Thai restaurant. I got the Pineapple Fried Rice and a Chang's beer (Thailand beer). I also requested the rice to be spicy. It came out delicious and the spice with the flavors of the rice came together really nicely. Overall I was very impressed with my meal and how it is prepared and served. Would definitely recommended coming back to this spot for Thai food.
Oops i should have written this ages ago. I dont eat thai as much as i did 15 years ago but i still prefer this shop over other local thai options for take out, and get it every few weeks. the new space looks nice for eating in too (but I have not). Im a big fan of the green curry, the drunken noodles and the pad see ew. (i always add a side of steamed veggies to the order because adding them tones down the heavy savory sauces and it alleviates my guilt for indulging.) the lunch special is great and goes til 4.
I live in the area and ordered pickup – the spring rolls (4 for $4) and the green curry ($12). First off, the spring rolls were small and they were the kind that you can buy frozen in a bag from an Asian grocery store – and $1 each?? I would have paid $1 for 4, but these sucked. And the green curry barely had any chicken in it, and had string beans (which was a first for green curry). It wasn't as spicy as I had hoped – and the portion sizes were small! I ordered from another nearby Thai place before and they gave me my green curry in a large container – this place was $2 more expensive and served it in one of the smaller containers.
Oh well, I live nearby and I was always curious about this place. Needless to say, I will never be returning to eat here unless there was a zombie apocalypse and I had to steal food and stock up from somewhere close.
Khao Sarn stands on the corner of a South Williamsburg street that has seen worse days but somehow manages to look like it has seen better days. The irony.
The dusty green awning with faded gold lettering invokes some kind of eastern medicine pharmacy that should be tucked away into an old part of Chinatown, certainly misplaced as the awning for any restaurant in Williamsburg.
Once you step in the place looks like an old bar/restaurant in Saigon. Old wooden bar with christmas lights, duct tape over the front windows which do their best to keep out the winter draft. Exposed insulation glue on the walls… I suppose the whole place is doing it's best to mimic the real feel of Thailand : ratchet and broken down with design cues from 2 decades past.
The food here is ok. I can't say anything was bad, but I really can't say any of it was great. They have a dinner prix fixe option which is actually a pretty good deal in terms of value. For $20 you get :
-Tom Yum Soup
– One Appetizer
– One Entree
– A free drink beer/wine etc.
The Tom Yum had a sour note and was spicy… but seemed to be missing the hint of lime. It definitely wasn't what I was used to…
For appetizer I got the e-san sausage, which is fresh pork sausages. They definitely tasted like fresh pork, but again I just can't say they were good. I mean the stuff tasted fresh and it was well fried but the dish just wasn't amazing. Note : I don't think anyone ever orders this dish because the waitress came by and asked if we ordered dumplings and I told her I ordered "e-san sausages" and was pretty sure the dish she was holding was mine, but she didn't think it was and went around every table asking if it was there's before the other waitress came by and told her it was actually my dish.
My entree was spicy fried rice with shrimp… and again this is just mediocre. All Thai rice seems to be heavy in grease and this didn't disappoint in that regard. But the flavor profile was… ok, some peppers and onions. It just wasn't very spicy though.
Lowlights of the experience : my dining companion ordered basil crispy duck and they didn't bring it until about 10 mintues after I had finished everything. It took them probably 30 minutes to bring this dish out… not sure what the hold up was.
Also this place is cash only, which automatically earns a deduction from me. Conveniently they placed an ATM at the front of the restaurant which they probably a cut of the ATM fee every time you take cash out to pay the bill. The staff seemed to be fully Thai howerver, and they did replace my Thai Ice Tea with a Thai Iced Coffee after I mistakenly ordered the wrong thing and tasted what seemed like simple syrup doused on top of milk and tea.
Still, this place earns no more than 3 stars. Ok food but deductions for the decor, slow serving of some dishes and cash only.
With the seemingly endless amount of Thai restaurants in NYC, it's easy to keep reviews simple and short. With that said, I think Khao Sarn is one of those underrated places. Great lunch specials, price is on the money, food quality is good and service has been decent. Granted, I have not been when it has been very busy, and during the day I saw no lapse in the quality of service. My only complaint was that some dishes seem to be a lot greasier than they need to be. I learned about Khao Sarn via a recommendation and would certainly recommend it further .
I have ordered takeout from Khao Sarn many many times. Unfortunately, over the last few months, I have found that the quality of their food has gone downhill.
Usually I order the drunken noodles, which do have a nice flavor, however, on one occasion, the only chicken in there were small stringy pieces of chicken which looked like "afterthoughts." The size of the portion has gone down considerably, and the food has gotten a lot more oily.
However, on my most recent order, I was literally pulling out small fibrous pieces of some substance from the food, were enough to put me over the edge. maybe it was lemongrass, but frankly, I've had thai food at countless thai restaurants and have never had to spit out anything, so that is no excuse even if it was lemongrass. it shouldn't be as hard as wood.
Oh yeah, and they didn't even include utensils.
I won't be going back to find out.
My coworkers and I had food from Khao Sarn delivered to our place of employment during lunch time. The delivery man was very kind and it took him about 30 minutes to deliver us our food from the time that we originally called in our lunch order. We were provided with extra condiments and necessities along with our food.
I had one of the $8.00 lunch specials which was
Thai Fried Rice with Chicken. Khao Sarn provides you with the option of having Spring Rolls as part of the lunch special. The Thai Fried Rice w /Chicken was hot, fresh and tasted delicious! Although the Spring Rolls are very small, my coworkers and I raved about how good they tasted….The food was seasoned without being overpowering. All in all, I received quite a bit of food for a great price. My coworkers commented on their Chicken Pad Thai being flavorful.