Sugar & Spice

Used to love Sugar and Spice — was my favorite Thai place. Not sure why they changed the format of the panang curry. Used to come with a salad and nice designer dish presentation, now just the curry and rice. Feel like it’s changing; maybe new owners.

This used to be an excellent Thai restaurant. I have eaten here many times for more than ten years, including at least once on my birthday (I liked it so much).
It seems that the original Thai owners have sold out to Chinese restauranteurs, with disastrous results. I first noticed the decline the last time we came here, maybe a year or so ago. At that time I noticed that the Thai staff had been replaced by Chinese.
When we arrived here tonight, I noticed attendance was light. That was a red flag, but I ignored it. When the Thai iced tea arrived and was pre-​mixed (rather than stratified as it always was/​should be), that was a sign. It tasted like a powdered pre-​mix, was not what we had ordered on every previous visit, and not acceptable. We asked them to serve us the item that we had always ordered — they replied that they could not (i.e. the item was not brewed tea layered with Condensed Milk, but instead a powered pre-​mix). That was strike two. The negotiation with the server was flat footed and not up to Thai standards. These people are clueless.
My wife’s Salmon with Ginger sauce was tasteless. Our friends’ Squid was overcooked and rubbery. Their Seafood Stew was way too spicy and inedible. They told the server that it was too spicy and that they could not eat it. They took it away and re-​served it and it was still inedible. My Tamarind Duck was good but not great. When the waitress asked me how we liked our food, I made it clear that we were not happy, but they made no attempt to address any of our issues — thus this flaming public post instead of a confidential win-​win negotiation.
This is no longer a Thai restaurant, but rather yet another thinly disguised Chinese spin on a popular genre. Crab Rangoon, Gyoza, Shumai and Sukuyaki at a Thai restaurant? Really? And the phony review by Nick C (with 2 reviews) saying «I would eat here every day if I could»? How sleazy.
I am astounded that any recent 5 star review could be legit. I think some other reviews are phony as well.
YMMV — but I will not return here. Sad…

I say it is mediocre and worse. I ordered delivery from here yesterday. The spicy rice noodle soup was not spicy at all, instead, it was incredibly sweet. Imagine a sweet noodle soup. And their highly recommended crispy chicken basil was just a sweeter version of orange chicken you can find in any Chinese restaurant. It was an unpleasant dinner and I will never order anything from here again.

Good service and excellent food. We have 6 dishes and they are all awesome. Kang Som is way too spicy but if you are looking for something to spice up the day, this will be a good go-​to

This place is one of my go-to’s for dine in and, more often than not, takeout. The crispy pork belly, drunken noodle, and pineapple fried rice are my favorites. The drunken noodle is not spicy as the website claims, which suits me fine because I enjoy tasting my food, though my spice-​loving boyfriend wishes it was spicier.

I would eat here every day if I could.
Sugar and Spice is the BEST authentic thai food for miles. This is our go-​to joint whenever we’re craving delicious, almost buttery pad see ew, or for garlic pork belly that will knock your socks off (which is quite often). With the amazing food, comes amazing service — the staff here never fail to disappoint.
Order widely, and order a lot — you can’t go wrong here. Absolutely a «must-​visit», and well worth traveling for.

Great place to have lunch. The staff is friendly and the food is good. If you drive there you can park at Porter Square malls for free for 2h.
If you work close by, definitely trade your usual lunch for good quality priced Thai food !

Great Thai food and quality!!! Must try!!!
I have been there a lot of times and t all of the staffs are so nice and friendly as always! The quality of foods were so great if compare with some other restaurants.

Their rice dishes and noodle dishes are the same prices on their menu, however I was charged an additional $ 1 for substituting noodles for rice with my curry. In the big picture, $ 1 is largely insignificant, but I get frustrated with restaurants looking to shake you for down for every penny.
The food was delicious, but I prefer restaurants that value their customers more than that.

Definition of mediocre Thai. The tom yum soup had an oil slick on the top of it that made it less than appetizing. The crispy chicken basil was not crispy but still had decent flavor. The drunken noodles were pretty bland even though I asked for spicy.
I ordered delivery so maybe it’s better on site, but if I’m trekking out for Thai food, I’m headed to Lemon Thai in Somerville.

Sugar & Spice is my jam. Flavorful Pad Thai coupled with a delicious Coconut Smoothie for under $ 15, love it. It’s your standard no-​frills, but tries to be cutesie kind of Thai place. The service is well intentioned, but you may puzzle at some of the things they do. Why does half the table get their dishes first? Why do drinks come at the end? Where are the utensils? Seriously, where are the utensils? But they try and you can ask them for whatever it is you’re missing. Service aside, Sugar & Spice is an awesome spot, especially for lunch.

This was a surprisingly good place for a work lunch. Can’t speak for dinner or anything of the sort, but the food was delish, the service was snappy, the portion sizes weren’t the pathetically small ones a lot of places serve for lunch, and so on.
The menu (at least the lunch menu) seems pretty varied so it’s probably fine even for your friends that don’t like the curry-​ful assortment of Thai dishes, as there’s tons of non-​curry stuff going on.
Would definitely consider going here again for lunch — not much more than a tenner for a substantial, tasty lunch, and we were in and out within 40 minutes during the lunch rush (noon-​ish).

Sugar and Spice.
This place is all about the Thai, and believe me, the Thai is GOOD!
As always, my go to dish was the Drunken Noodles, HMMMMMM-​HMMMM-​Good!
My wifey, went for the Pad Thai, and was in mid-​gastrogasm the entire time.
Mass Ave, Sugar and Spice, yes, go there.

Its Sunday night, Memorial Day weekend, and my wife and I are starving. We’ve got a Thai food craving and we’re in Porter Square. A Tale of Two Thai Restaurants. One has patio seating on a beautiful Sunday evening, the other doesn’t…
What a delightful evening featuring a breezy sunset coupled with some flavorful and well-​spiced Thai food. My wife ordered the green curry with beef, and I went with something that I use as a benchmark for thai restaurants, drunken chicken noodles.
I’ll start with the benchmark, drunken chicken noodles with extra chicken ($ 2 extra). For me, it was a bit too sweet, but I suppose we are at «Sugar and Spice». In retrospect, I could have asked for it to be more spicy, so I won’t take away too much from that. I asked for some hot sauce and that patched things up a bit. Still, the food was a bit cold when I got it, but other than that the flavors are all there and the chicken doesn’t have the weird texture that most Thai restaurants have.
The real eye opener though was the green curry chicken. Its not something I generally like, and when my wife wants to order curries at Thai restaurants I’m not particularly excited. See, I’m Indian, and I tend to like curries the Indian way. But, this green curry was something else. It had a really unique flavor with a delayed heat that is quite difficult to describe. I’ll probably have to make another trip to figure it out, but this dish alone makes the place worthy of a return.
Service was great. There’s a particular Thai restaurant in Central Square that we used to frequent that didn’t have great service. Hence, I’m a little apprehensive of Thai places. To my surprise though, our water was topped off frequently enough to keep our spiced tongues in check. We didn’t have to wait too long for anything, and the servers were fairly attentive. If my drunken noodles were warmer or slightly spicier, then it’d be a perfect 5-​stars.

Sugar & Spice is probably one the few Thai restaurants that I actually like because they have really good pad see ew. It was pretty empty when I came here and the restaurant is super spacious. So I got here and the waitress was seating us at a booth, but I noticed there were circle booths that looked really cool and asked her if we can sit there. With annoyance, she was like «no» and rolled her eyes at me. I was so caught off guard by this. Ok, I know it’s annoying when customers requests where they want to sit because I am a hostess myself, but it’s only annoying if they request to sit elsewhere AFTER you’ve seated them. But we were just walking to our table and asked.
This waitress was rude to us throughout our entire meal. In fact, she ended up asking another waitress so serve us because she made it pretty obvious that she didn’t like us. We were seated at a booth across from the cashier and noticed her talking to another waitress and looking at us with dirty looks. I am not even exaggerating. At this point, I wasn’t even bothered by her because I am only here to enjoy my lunch with my girlfriends. So here’s my point: THE SERVICE IS AWFUL HERE. It’s not going to stop me from coming back though because my pad see ew with duck was SO good. I think it’s definitely one of the best pad see ews I have ever had. My friends ordered a bento box and it was really good too.
I can’t wait to be back for the food. However, if service continues to be crappy, I definitely won’t be back. So 3 stars for the food and 0 stars for the service.

They have a pretty nice Thai Ice Tea here.
Other things which are good are the curries, and the noddles. In general, it can be a little bit pricy, but the ambiance of the restaurant is quite nice, and the delivery staff is always great.

4.25 stars
Consistently well-​made & comforting Thai dishes makes Sugar & Spice one of my favorite Asian restaurants in Cambridge. I wasn’t much for Thai food before finding this Porter square eatery, but now that I’ve gone through half the menu, I grown to love the strong, spicy flavors of the cuisine.
I’ve tried:
– sticky rice & mango: best I’ve had! I think I’ve ordered this dessert every single time I’ve visited.
– tom yum soup: salty, sour, spicy, & satisfying
– crispy basil chicken: lightly fried, plenty of basil
– gra prao chicken: amazing chili sauce
– excited chicken: tender chicken breast, veggies, & a bit of crunch from cashews. Presented in a crisp, puffed shell
– crispy pad thai: probably my least favorite item I’ve tried, but still better than the pad Thai I’ve had in SF
– sticky rice: love the tiny bamboo container
– Thai rolls: nice & crispy
Lovely outdoor seating for when the weather’s cooperative.
Wait staff tend to leave customers alone after delivering food to the table (most likely because half of the patrons are students doing homework), but they’re lingering about, just make eye contact should you need anything!

Sugar. Spice. And everything nice. These were the ingredients chosen to create the perfect Thai dish.
But the restaurant accidentally added TOO MUCH of an EXTRA INGREDIENT to the concoction… PEPPERS.
In my attempt to make this review «punny,» the food here was pretty good, although a bit too spicy for my liking. My go-​to Thai dish always Pad Thai (so white washed, I know) and green curry. I noticed the green curry was labeled with 3 red chili peppers indicating how spicy it is… so I requested to make it milder. But man, with one bite, my mouth was on FIRE! Luckily, I had a thai iced tea to alleviate the S&M spice, but whew! Felt like the devil was in my mouth. I ended up not eating close to half of the green curry because I couldn’t handle it.
Not sure if it’s related, but a few hours later, I broke out in some rashes/​hives on my neck… which has never happened to me. Is it possibly from the food being too spicy? Coincidence?
Anyway, I highly recommend the pad thai. It’s on the sweeter side, which I like. What makes Thai food so delicious for me is its adventurous combination of salty, spicy, and sweetness. The pad thai had a pretty good balance of those three flavors. The green curry, on the hand, was questionable. Too spicy for me, even when I requested less spice! The thai iced tea was a nice surprise — it was more like an icee, which is pretty neat. A bit too sweet for my liking, though.
3.5 stars.

Food: 3.5 Stars
Service: 3.5 Stars
We came for dinner in the summer. The place has interesting décor, they have a very lighthearted atmosphere outside and also patio seating when the weather is good. I ordered the Hor Mok and my girlfriend ordered the Pad Kee Mao with veggies.
First thing to note is that portions are huge for certain dishes, particularly for the noodle dishes. My girlfriend definitely liked her Pad Kee Mao, it had a hint of spice, used a variety of vegetables which she liked and it was very filling.
So the Hor Mok was described in the menu as basically a rice dish within a coconut. I wasn’t expected a super fresh coconut or anything, but I was hoping that there would be a lot of flavor inside the rice at least. Unfortunately, I felt the rice was really quite bland and there was no coconut flavor in it. Also when looking at the sides of the coconut on the inside, they were purple! I wasn’t impressed.
Though service wasn’t terrible, we found the servers wouldn’t really go around to check on the guests, they would just congregate around the cashier. It’s probably one of the better thai places around porter square but I’d probably have to recommend Rod Dee over Sugar and Spice.

Sugar & Spice is located the next block over from Yume Wo Katare, a super-​short walk over from the Porter Square T stop. They are located on a corner and have taken over the edge of the sidewalk for their own outdoor patio seating.
Given the current season, they’ve thrown themselves all in, and have decorated their dining space with pumpkins and skulls to herald the approach of Halloween.
Eager to please, they came by several times to take our order before we were quite ready. Finally though we were all there and we had decided, and we thus started with the Crab Rangoon $ 6.95, which arrived 5 bundles to an order, hot and crisp and cheesy.
I opted for the Thai Iced Tea $ 2.95, which was a nice cooling treat.
Though a bit disappointing in presentation (what purple???), the Purple Fried Rice $ 10.95 Thai fried rice with shrimp paste, chicken, shredded mango, and egg turned out to be rather tasty and soft. Pad See You $ 9.95 (Flat rice noodles, chicken, egg and mixed vegetables) was as good as expected. The Panang Curry $ 11.95 pork requested mild (Richer, sweeter, creamier, and more full of herbs than the red or green curry) was too hot for my taste, yet came with a cooling side salad. Virgin Garden $ 9.95 (Flavorful steamed or fried tofu with mixed vegetables) with a 50 cent brown rice surcharge, was a mélange of crisp vegetables. Tastewise, however, my votes went to the noodle dish and the Purple rice.
As we were dining family style, we played Tetris with the entrée plates, which though interestingly shaped, were heavy and difficult to fit in the remaining table space.
Lesson learned — If you want something mild, don’t order the Penang curry; their base is already spicy, so it can’t be made truly mild.