Lemon Grass

I feel like this restaurant has been in the area for quite some time… I don’t know how. The food was not very good but it was expensive. Lotus Thai is just down the street and tastes way better, plus with better service. There is also a Thai restaurant on Coventry which I prefer. It’s too bad because the atmosphere and location are fantastic.

This place deserves zero stars based on my experience, but I was forced to give a rating.
I have been wanting to eat here for a long time (at least 5 months). I showed up at Lemon grass today at 4:45 pm and noticed on their sign they do not open for dinner on Fridays until 5pm. So I went to CVS for a few minutes. I came back to Lemon Grass at 4:57pm. The doors were still locked so I yelled at myself for not walking around more at CVS (I didn’t need anything there though) and proceeded to look at their menu on my phone. I saw someone working inside but they never came to the door. I continued to wait until 5:03 pm… the doors were still locked. I pulled at each door. Then I noticed a staff member walking near the doors. She appeared to looked at the doors and me waiting outside, but never let me in! At 10 (feels like –2) degrees outside, I decided this place wasn’t worth it. Lemon Grass you lost a single customer today, but one who typically consumes a lot of expensive food. I will not return to eat based on this. I went down the road to Lopez, who also opened at 5pm but appeared to let their customers in early if they were outside waiting.

Below average pad thai, horrible tom kha ghai soup and they gave us the wrong spring rolls. Ty Fun is one thousand times better IMO. Have not been back even though it’s right around the corner. I drive the 15 min to tremont.

I’m a huge fan of Thai food, and this is definitely my least favorite Thai food in Cleveland. I’ve tried it 2 or 3 times– primarily for group events. Unfortunately food is bland, portions are average.
I feel like pad thai is always an easy go to dish at any Thai restaurant, but I’d much rather try some of the places on Coventry. The fried appetizers are good… but they are still… Fried appetizers. Anything tastes good fried!
They do have good space for group events and are generally pretty accommodating.

Poor Thai food. I had samosas and orange chicken ala Thai style. This food was presented as Thai yet tasted like microwaved frozen food. My wife had the fried rice which was tasteless. (Ironically, Trader Joe’s fried rice tastes better).
Very disappointing and I will not go back unless I can go back in the kitchen and watch the preparation by the chef (is there a trained chef at this place??).
This place caters to the local crowd who appears not to demand real Thai, Mexican or Italian foods. If you want authentic cuisine go somewhere else. What a rip off.

This isn’t a good restaurant. Luckily there are tons of good Thai nearby (Peppermint, Bangkok and High Thai’d). Service is poor,
ambience is flat and the food is blander than competitor’s dishes. Recent price increases on their relatively small portions wasn’t a good touch. Furthermore, my party of only 5 got charged automatic gratuity and they wouldn’t split the check so one of us got stuck paying $ 15 in tips — no one had cash. Even without that experience the place is a ¹⁄₅ because of poor food and service.

Atmosphere is good but food is expensive for the small portion they serve. It is not exactly authentic as I have been to Thailand many times. We walked away hungry after spending over $ 60. Would not be back unless I have someone else to pay for it.

I’ve been coming to this restaurant for years and have never been disappointed with their food or service. Their Pad Thai is the best I’ve ever had from anywhere. I’ve had this dish from tons of Thai restaurants from different locations in the US (including San Francisco and New York) and none have been as good! Anyone I ever brought here has said the same. Lemon Grass’s garlic duck is also amazing — my aunt who is a very picky eater and rarely likes restaurant food raved about this dish — and I definitely recommend getting the mango sticky rice as a dessert after any meal! The only way to describe this dessert is orgasmic! They also have tons of vegetarian options, anyone can find something they like here. I would recommend this restaurant to anyone!

CRAB FRIED RICE!
I considered writing those three words alone as my entire review, but I will elaborate. Everything else is mediocre as described in the other reviews, but I LOVE the crab fried rice. It was a recommendation from their delightfully goofy server, and I have ordered it repeatedly since!

This place was pretty dead when I went here. The service seemed a little low energy but extremely friendly. It was a large, clean, and nice looking place, good atmosphere. The pad thai was alright, but it really lacked that old smoky wok flavor that I’ve grown to love at the cheaper thai restaurants in Seattle. My friend had some spicy green noodles that tasted pretty good. It was a little pricey for my level of satisfaction. I wouldn’t decline an invitation to meet someone here again, but I’m more interested in seeing what else is out there.

Went here for dinner with a friend on a Saturday night after deciding to explore Lee Rd. I wasn’t too impressed with the décor of this place, particularly the tableclothes and the dark orange on the walls. I had the chicken pik king and the beef satay. I felt that both dishes were good, but not near the best satay or coconut-​based curry I’ve had. The food prices here were a bit expensive, but the drinks were quite reasonably priced; we had an excellent bottle of wine for a little over twenty dollars.

The restaurant is huge, but they have very few clientele and even fewer waitstaff. It takes a really long time to even order your food. Unless you’re really not that hungry, you’re probably not going to like the service a lot.
The pricing of the food is also a bit high. For far cheaper (and probably a lot tastier), you can get similar options at Mekong River down the street.
I was here a few years ago though and the food was definitely better. I’m disappointed that the quality has decreased. Hopefully they’ll bounce back because I’d be sad to see a local business fold.

I’ve had better at a lot of joins, but that was Los Angeles where Thai people are plentiful. I guess I have to accept that the scale is lower here in cleveland cuz there just arent alot of thai’s to open a eatery. Anyway, IMHO over priced for what you get. and what you get is just OK. it wasnt bad but ok is the best I can give em. if you never ventured outside of Ohio I suppose you wont know the difference. If you frequently visit SF, LA or NYC, you wont like this place. Skip on the thai food in cleveland cuz the buz on this place is that its the «best thai in cleveland».

Very disappointed by this restaurant. My friend and I came here for dinner at around 7pm on a Thursday night, and the restaurant was fairly empty. There was only 1 waitress working, and she took over 15 minutes to bring us menus. My friend and I were both very hungry, so we knew what we wanted to get right away. However, it took another 20 minutes for the waitress to come around to take our orders.
I got the duck panang curry, and was very disappointed by the lack of flavor in the curry. There was also too much vegetables and too few duck meat in the dish, so I would not recommend this dish whatsoever. If you’re looking for some great Thai food with awesome service, go further down Lee and check out Mekong River!

While this place suffices as a Thai food restaurant, I didn’t find anything particularly amazing about it. My fiancé got a green curry and I got mango fried rice. The green curry was actually the really good part of the experience. I thought it was pretty delicious and my fiancé liked it enough. It wasn’t his favorite of all of the green curries that he seems to have registered in his memory, but it was good. The mango fried rice was certainly lacking something. The pieces of mango were substantial and one of my favorite things about fried rice is the amount of onion in it, so that was good too. But overall, it wasn’t packed with flavor and, though I ate a lot more of it than either of us expected me to (I was super hungry, ok?), I would have to say I don’t think I’d do this again (order the mango fried rice… or even come here). Everything was just ok and I don’t feel a pressing need to come back.
Needless to say, my leftovers didn’t end up getting the attention they may have wanted. We even forget about them in the car, then they sat in the fridge for too long.

Lemon Grass is my favorite place to have dinner when I’m going to the Cedar Lee, or just over on the East Side in general.
Yes, its menu is pretty much like every other Thai place at first glance. However, one thing that sets it apart is the large quantity of vegetarian entrees, or entrees that can be made vegetarian. My husband actually had a hard time choosing an entrée at dinner last night, because there were just so many to choose from, not to mention that more appetizers were vegetarian than not. Four out of 5 times when we go out to eat, his decision is made for him because there is usually only one vegetarian option on a restaurant’s menu (and it’s usually a veggie burger or cheese pizza).
Me being the hypocritical flexitarian that I am, I always indulge in my favorite dish at Lemon Grass when I visit: the Spicy Thai Basil stir-​fried duck. It is just phenomenal. My brother and I shared this dish about three years ago (or whenever it was that 500 Days of Summer was playing at the Cedar Lee) and he still talks about the dish to this day.
This duck dish is just delicious, but probably not the healthiest thing on the menu. It reminds me of certain Korean chicken dishes my mom makes, where the fat from the meat melts into the spices and juices of the rest of the dish, and you kind of spoon all of that on top of your rice as a clear fat gravy. It’s the best ever. Also, I appreciate that the duck is deboned as well as it can be (only the bones in the drumsticks remained).
I also really enjoy the fluffy, perfectly-​cooked jasmine rice at Lemon Grass.
For dinner last night, we also ordered the basil fried rice with tofu. I think I prefer the same dish at Cuisine du Cambodge simply because I like it to be a little on the spicier side, but my husband scarfed it down, loving it.
Overall, the servers, greeter and bar staff were SUPER friendly here last night. I think we were greeted with an enthusiastic welcoming hello and sent off with a very kind Thank You by every single employee that we passed.

Ugh. This place is so incompetent, I don’t even know where to begin. They mess up orders like George Lucas messes up movies. I wouldn’t be surprised if I went here one day and some goddamned blinking Ewok was my server.*
The food is not terrible. It’s okay, but there are certainly better Thai places around. The service is slow and it has a certain knack for getting things wrong. The interior is pretty nice, I will give them that.
I would recommend this place only if you’re hanging out around Cedar/​Lee and you’re on the verge of knifing someone if you don’t get yourself some Thai food.
*Mental note: Open restaurant that serves authentic Ewok cuisine. Scratch that, Ewok-​fusion cuisine. Create a bajillion fake Unilocal!accounts. Five-​star review that mofo like it’s my job (which, btw, it will be). Make $$$$$$$. Laugh a lot.

Yeah, so metro Cleveland has a Thai restaurant called Lemon Grass. What city doesn’t? It’s about as expected as that local coffee shop that uses some pun with «bean/​joe/​java/​grounds» and writes its menu on a chalkboard.
But wait! The predictability doesn’t stop there! A perfectly adequate curry suffered a certain diminution because the cooks just couldn’t deliver on spiciness to add punch to the heavily cooked veggies. Sorry, but I don’t think they can play that «Midwestern tastes» card anymore, because Indianapolis has a Thai restaurant on the über-​suburban southside that curled my nose hairs. I ask for spicy and can certainly expect better than what Lemon Grass had to offer; no doubt other Clevelanders would feel the same way.
At the same time, nothing was bad at all, and the service at this big-​for-​Thai was really exceptional: super friendly and attentive but never quite approached gushing or fawning. As we were leaving, they even rushed one last time to send a final farewell – they didn’t need to do that, since we had already put the tip down. Just nice! Midwest nice! Now let’s pull off «Midwest spice» because, seriously, that doesn’t have to be an oxymoron.

I hesitated to come here because they really don’t get that many customers. It’s a fairly sizable restaurant with lots of windows and a nice patio, but if only one or two tables are filled, it just feels a bit… eerie. I finally did come because I got a deal from living social. Tried the Pad See Ew because High Thai’d does not carry it. The noodles had a weird texture to them… they tasted a bit soggy, for lack of a better word. The meat was overdone. It was passable for the sole reason that we had to drive 30 minutes to Pepper Pike for better Pad See Ew.
The next time, we came for takeout. They told us 15 minutes — when we got there they made us wait for 20 minutes more. The restaurant was nearly empty as usual, and while we were waiting we couldn’t help but notice that the bartender had his shirt half tucked in. I know, that’s a nitpicky detail, but seriously? The Pad See Ew was the same — soggy noodles, meat overdone.
That was the last time we’ve come back here.

I came to Lemon Grass to redeem the Groupon I’d bought earlier in the month. The transaction went smoothly and I didn’t have any issues regarding that.
I’d never eaten Thai food before but the server went above and beyond the explain the different dishes and recommend things that she thought I might like. The food itself was very good, albeit on the spicy side, but that was pretty much expected.
The prices seemed a bit on the high side, and that’s really my only complaint.