Tamarind

I stopped by after went to Booksales on Sunday in May for lunch. I had Basil beef +5 star spicy, it served with rice and it was great and tasty. The server was look like Asian Lady. I asked her for hot tray, too and she brought it for me. Overall, I had a great experience and happy with my lunch and will definitely be back.

Came here for dinner with friends.
Food — 5
Very good food. Now i only tried one dish (bulgogi) and my friends had a dish each, so i can’t vouch for everything. However, everything we ordered was delicious.
Atmosphere — 4
The place doesn’t look special from the outside, but it has a nice homey vibe inside. Nothing really special, but a good feel.
Service — 5
Overall, very good service. Water was refilled. Food came quickly. Orders were taken on time.
Value — 3.5
So far this has been the best Thai place in Ithaca for me. Prices are comparable to other places and are very reasonable. Food and service make for a worthwhile trip here.

Really poor delivery service. Took more than an hour for the order to get to us. Food is mediocre but what do you expect in ithaca. Thai tea is really sweet but better than Thai basil. I never bother to give reviews on Unilocal but this really pisses me off.

Good Thai food. We got the Pad Thai noodles, Red Curry, Spicy Basil. All of them were very good. Red Curry slightly on the creamer side due to the coconut milk I assume. Other than the calorie aspect this added to the taste. Tom Yum soup also came out very well — ask for level 2; we asked for 3 & was slightly hotter than expected. Restaurant has parking so one less headache.

I got the pad khing with beef and a spice level of 4. It was absolutely delicious, I wasn’t sure what to expect because I’ve never had it before but it was so good. I got the fried tofu as an appetizer and that was also delicious, the sweet and sour dipping sauce with crushed peanuts was yummy

The Thai food was great! I came here for dinner with some friends and we ordered the pad Thai, pineapple fried rice, masaman curry with shrimp, sukiyaki, and the Thai custard with sticky rice. All of the dishes were delicious and had nice portion sizes! My favorite dish was the pad Thai. The sauce used was delicious and the noodles were chewy and perfectly cooked. The masaman curry was really good too! The coconut in the curry made it smell great.
The only problem I had was that the service was really slow. There were only two people working for dinner that night. The table was a little small as well, we had trouble fitting all four dishes.
I recommend trying the desserts though! The Thai custard was super tasty. I definitely want to come back again.

I have really enjoyed Tamarind Thai!
The restaurant itself is very quaint and charming. Nice for a date night or dinner with friends, unlike some other casual restaurants.
My favorites: the fried squid, roti appetizer (the curry sauce is SO good), and the Gaeng Dang Curry.
On many recommendations, I tried the Choo Chee Duck, but it was too fried for my taste. Also, the papaya salad was either missing dressing or doesn’t come with much/​any dressing to speak of (I ordered it delivery so can’t confirm).

Pad Thai is my favorite! They make it just as per specifications. Not to forget, their soups are amazing!
Try the spring rolls too! It will take a few orders to taste the good stuff in the menu!

We stopped for lunch after hiking some of the parks nearby. Lunch included soup which was a little boring, but nice considering we weren’t expecting it.
Boyfriend and I ordered pad see ew (medium) and pad thai (medium). We were both crying and sweating after a few minutes– it was so hot! Despite that, it was delicious.
Great service and a cozy little place.

I recommended steam dumpling and chicken satay for an appetizer. The chicken is very moist and tender. Their dumpling is fresh since I notice some restaurants used frozen dumpling. The Tom Kha Kai (soup) is the best by far even my 9yrs old son ask to come back again the next day (he typically a pasta, pizza and sandwiches boy). For our main course we had the chili basil crispy duck and stir fry sukiyaki. Both dishes were flavorful taste authentic to the native thai. The server are very nice, polite and attentive.

The service was so nice. The restaurant looks a little dingy from the outside but the inside is a nice atmosphere. The chicken satay, papaya salad and fresh rolls are so good!!! The beef pad see ew and the mass an curry were delicious as well! I would only say that be careful of the spiciness level because they ask how spicy you want it and it’s crazy hot even when «mild».

Great experience at tamarind. Walked in at 830 on a Saturday night and was seated immediately. Appetizers and dinner were served quickly. Everything tasted amazing! We recommend the massaman curry (sweet creamy flavor) and the pad see ew, and the Thai BBq chicken.

This place is great and served the best crispy duck I have ever had! All the dishes were fantastic and the service was warm and friendly. If you want Thai food in Ithaca, this is the place to come.

Their food is good. That’s not my concern. I’ve been there twice in the last year, and the place is really dirty. The bathroom is not cleaned well, the windows were full of dead flies and grime, and the table linens were not truly clean. I worry that if the presentational part of the restaurant is that grimy, how clean is the kitchen? Truly, I have worried about food poisoning each time I ate there (with friends who wanted to go there).

Definitely really like this place. When I first went it looked like a little house so I was confused but inside it looks like a full very homey restaurant. The staff is always very friendly and helpful. I enjoy ordering Pad Thai and it tastes great every time. This is probably my go to Thai place in Ithaca. Would recommend.

Have had food delivered to my home twice. Food has been delivered still warm and is very delicious. Will continue to enjoy this wonderful food in the future.

In the battle for Ithaca fish cake supremacy, Tamarind totally wins. And if you really want some, order them early– they run out.
The food is routinely delicious. Their salads are fantastic. The papaya salad is so good, but when they say topped with shrimp, they mean exactly two. If you’re looking for protein, you might be barking up the wrong tree. My dude says that the duck salad is out if this world, but again, the duck goes fast so order early.
My only real beef with Tamarind– inconsistency. A spice level four will be perfection one day, and a blistering invitation to bathroom hell the next. Portion sizes seem to change from order to order, and are totally different in the restaurant.
For the best Tamarind experience, order in, and order early. Enjoy your fish cakes on the couch, where pants are totally optional.

I give this place three stars, because while the food was great, the service was just not.
Came with my friends. We were five and were promptly seated. However, it took forever for our food order to be taken. Then, once it was we waited around an hour for food.
We saw other parties who came afterward and got served before us. We asked the waitress when our food would be brought out and she said that she would check. She went to talk to another waitress and then they exchanged a look which led us to believe that they forgot to put our order in in the first place. The other waitress comes over and apologizes and says that because we are a large party, it will take a while for out food to come out. I’m sorry, a large party? A normal sized family can be five people. I would have appreciated if they instead apologized for not putting our order in.
Anyway, save your time and go to Taste of Thai to get friendlier and more efficient service and, I would say, better food.

Tonight I experienced a piece of heaven when I bit into a dessert called «Thai custard over sticky rice.» They were giving it out for free as a fathers day promotion. While no one at the table was a father, we did appreciate the reminder to call our dads (happy father’s day dad), even though its hard to remember anything besides the wonderful meal I just ate.
The dessert was creamy, sticky and sweet but most importantly it had just the right salty kick! Nothing elevates a desert like salt. Oh and this is not to say that my Choo Chee Duck got out-​shined. The Choo Chee Duck is still the best Thai dish in Ithaca! Yep tonight I died and went to heaven … twice! Is it fair to give a restaurant 5 stars based on two dishes? No, not really, but I’m doing it anyway. Now if duck doesn’t float your boat other solid choices include any of the Thai soups and any of the Thai noodle dishes. And folks, please refrain from ordering Korean, Chinese or Japanese food at a Thai restaurant. The service is kind of slow, so be warned of that in advance and just take your time and relax over some great Thai food.

Used to be my favorite Thai (the Thai Iced Tea is great), its a take out place, not much atmosphere dining in, service is ok

After visiting the Farmers Market, we decided to have our lunch here… there’s plenty of parking spot around the establishment… we walked it and it was busy… almost all the tables were occupied… I told them how many folks and the one guy told us in a slow voice ‘it’ll be long time’… so we were debating if we wanted to stay here or not and as we were in discussion, the same guy came back and said, ‘it’ll be about ten minutes’, so we stayed.
We ordered Spring Rolls, Fresh Rolls, & Fried Squid to start off. For main course, we went with Panang, Pad Thai, Thai Spicy Noodles, Spicy Eggplant, and Pad Prik Khing (Green Beans). As for spicy level, we went with 3 and for protein, we mixed it up between chicken, pork and beef.
Fresh Roll — despite a shrimp ready to jump out of the broken wrapper, it was your standard fare… the dipping sauces were excellent.
Spring Rolls — standard, nothing special to write about.
Fried Squid — it was little ‘fishy’, but crunch and excellent with the dipping sauce.
Panang — this curry was good, the curry broth was smooth and bold, it was excellent over the jasmine rice. I would recommend this again.
Pad Thai — the taste was good, however the noodle was little dry and the chicken was over dried…
Thai Spicy Noodles — we got this with beef and this was the best dish of all the main course… if you are sensitive to fish sauce or fish smell, be warned, you can smell the fish sauce few feet away from the dish… the noodles though were bit over cooked and mushy…
Spicy Eggplant — the eggplant and the sauce was good, the pork was too dried.
Pad Prik Khing (Green Beans) — the green beans needed to be cooked longer… I felt like they threw the green beans at the last before they plated to send it out.
I would avoid pork or chicken for protein, go with the beef as it was tender and juicy… all the other dishes we had with pork and chicken, I was disappointed.
There is extra $ 1 charge for additional rice and service is hit or miss… if they are busy, don’t expect too much… there is a gratuity of 18% for party of 6 or more. They are closed from 3 to 5 Mon to Fri.