Tom yum – Downtown

BEWARE OF ORDERING TAKE OUT THROUGH Unilocal WITH THIS RESTAURANT.
I am from California and was on a business trip to Downtown Phoenix and my group was hungry and craving Asian food and this was the nearest Asian restaurant to our hotel. We ordered for pick up/​take out from Unilocal and it took my credit card information. I thought this would just be for order and pick up confirmation but when I went to pick up my food, they asked for my credit card again. I did not notice the double charge until I arrived home, back in California.
I called in asking to speak to the manager and the woman that I spoke with said that she was unsure if her manager would come in that day so I left my number with them and it’s been three days with no call back.
Also my previous experience: when I was there, the cashier who rang me up also said, «will they be letting you out for a lunch break tomorrow? Because tomorrow I am off and when it gets busy, they call me and i don’t like that.»
Well, thanks for your awesome, positive attitude!
I refuse to give service to this restaurant and will be warning anyone I know who will be staying in Downtown Phoenix.

I just left Thai Basil after throwing away $ 17 on a disgusting meal. I didn’t eat but maybe 2 bites!!! I ate here at Tom Yum yesterday for lunch and it was amazing!!! I am here again to get some really good Thai! If you are in downtown Phoenix this is the place to go. I will say the service is a little slow, but the food is worth the wait.

Hello Followers:
We ate at Tom Yum last night prior to a Phoenix Symphony show. I am writing this review based on our first time here and the two dishes we ordered.
For an appetizer were ordered the summer wraps. These were the fresh wraps in rice paper with lettuce, carrots, noodles and shrimp.
First about the wraps: The filling was adequate with regard to the lettuce and carrots. Honestly, I did not see any noodles in them. You get two wraps cut in half, (you are served four ½ wraps) each about three inches long. The shrimp in the wraps was very, very scant. I felt they used only two shrimp to make both wraps. They cut the shrimp length-​wise twice, so the shrimp flavor was barely there. A disappointment. The peanut dipping sauce was nice and thick. The sweet vinegar dipping sauce had a nice flavor and was also just thick enough to drizzle into the wrap.
Negative about the wraps: Who every rolled the rice wraps we were served overlapped the rice wrap on each end of the wrap too much. In other words, there should have been filling all the way to the end with just the bare minimum of the rice wrap overlapping (and this was not the case). There was so much overlapping rice wrap on the ends we could not chew it! Therefore, we found ourselves cutting off the end of the wraps knowing it was too tough to chew, resulting in us wasting about one inch of the wrap on each of them.
Entrée we ordered was the shrimp pad thai. The portion was enough for two people to share. The shrimp (six in total) were a good size — — - not the small shrimp you sometimes get served in Thai restaurants.
The meal came out steaming hot, the noodles were cooked properly (not mushy), the scallions were fresh.
But, there did not appear to be any cooked egg in the dish which is typical of pad thai dishes. The biggest complaint we have is that the dish had an overtone of «fishy» flavor. Not shrimp fishy flavor, but «fish» fishy flavor which should not have been.
I don’t know if when the cook made the dish they added fish sauce and obviously too much of it OR if ingredients such as the fresh scallions were cut on a board where fresh fish had been and the board had not been wiped down, hence the fishy flavor wound up in our entrée.
The fishy taste was not subtle, but rather in every bite you could taste it. A disappointment to say the least.
If we would have had more time we would have sent it back for a new dish, but we could not be late for the Symphony which was several blocks away from the restaurant.
Also, usually there are peanuts on top of the completed pad thai dish, and at Tom Yum’s it was not served this way.
The Thai iced tea was a nice size and had good portions of tea and milk, etcetera. On a hot night it was a treat.
Therefore, due to the chewy wraps with little shrimp in them, and due to the fishy-​tasting shrimp pad thai, I am only giving Tom Yum two stars.

My boyfriend and I went to this place after Comic Con. The place is fairly small and had about 15 other patrons inside. Our drinks, appetizer and food came out pretty quickly and so did the check.
After we finished our food, we’d planned on eating dessert. Unfortunately I counted the time it took for our waitress to come back over and check on us. It was OVER 30 minutes! So why didn’t we just leave? Well my boyfriend had a very Ghandi like approach to things so he says to me we’re not in a hurry. So I grin and bear it because crazy girlfriends are not in style ever.
Finally, a lady who looks like the manager comes by and asks if we’re okay and my boyfriend tells her we wanted to order dessert. So our original waitress gets a menu off of the next table and hands it to my boyfriend. When we were ready to order dessert, she was M.I.A again.
I know people exaggerate about time spent and I admit to the judge and jury I have no patience BUT we actually waited 30 minutes. So here we are waiting for our dessert.
Anyhow we only tried a hot pot soup which was alright and some potstickers which were delicious. So the food I would say is pretty good, but the service Geezus! Again Um still waiting on a damn dessert and this place is zombie dead! The food is way over priced and to top it off with the service I won’t be back.

Great Thai food located in the heart of Downtown Phoenix. We ordered the Pad Woo Sen (she said it was the top 3 best she’s ever had), Tom Yum and the Thai Iced Tea. All were great, perfect level of spice at 3 on the Tom Yum. Service was great, very quick and attentive. No problem and we will be back.

Great Thai food. I had panang curry, summer rolls, and Thai iced yea. Delicious! I’m in town for work but I’d come back if I lived here.

This place is good enough for your after clubbing hangover hunger, no frills no thrills place, grab a seat order chow down and you will be good, had the fried noodles which is ok but a little dash of soy sauce it’s good enough.

Tom Yum– one of Downtown Phoenix’s several Thai restaurants (why are there so many downtown? I don’t know). The food is always solid (I really like the Massaman curry), the service is really hit or miss. The place is always busy and the waitresses all seem to be working hard, but it just takes way too long for lunch some days. Like most downtown lunch patrons, I just can’t take an hour+ for lunch. So now that you’ve read my review, fair warning, food is good but you better budget some extra time.

Soup is great as is the yellow chicken curry. Not sure why someone complained about water — maybe confused with another restaurant. We got plenty of water!

Slow service. No water is provided. The food is flavorless. I ordered drunken noodles. I couldn’t find one piece of complete noodle. How can they present a dish like this? Donn’t come here!

I was really in the mood for some phở! Went there and was really disappointed. The broth was not very tasty. It was really bland. They also didn’t bring out the condiments like lime, chili peppers, etc which was a big reason why the soup was not as appetizing as i wished it was. If you’re in the mood for phở don’t go to this place.

I ordered chow mien noodles for dinner and was pretty satisfied with my meal. It was a ton of food so I had leftovers for lunch the next day and enough for an after work snack too. For the price I paid it was a great amount of food and good flavor. They brought our food out to us within 10 minutes of walking into the restaurant, which is very important to me when I’m hungry.
Overall, it was a yummy meal close to where I live at a good price.

Very good food — love the broccoli and black pepper lunch special. Pretty good price point for downtown Phoenix.

I can’t remember the last time I walked out of restaurant. Oh yeah… that was ten minutes ago. The service was terrible! I waited over 15 minutes while others were seated and orders taken. I waited 10 minutes too long. I sacrificed service for convenience because it was right across the hotel. Never again. I’ll walk a few extra minutes to Thai Basil which by the way has already taken my order and served my first dish.

The Fish Two Oceans is wonderful — two large perfectly cooked fillets, one steamed and the other fried (but not a bit greasy) with two sauces on the side. For spicy dishes, you can choose mild, medium, hot, Thai hot, or Thai super hot!

So disappointing. Pad Thai is bland and greasy. Go to the Vegan House next door instead. They’re faster, nicer, friendlier & have better quality food.

We’re from out of town visiting for the weekend. Decided to walk around and see what there was for food. We wanted something other than «traditional American». So we found Thai. The people here were really nice. Got our food out quickly. And it was a great price. The lady even offered us the lunch since it was cheaper. What great service!
Only dislike I had was when we walked in we asked the guy if there was room for us. (We had just flown in from California, haven’t eaten anything and were starving) and he said it would be just a couple minutes. In my eyes a couple means 2 – 3. Nope. It took almost 15 minutes. But I guess that’s not really their fault. We did come at lunch and there were 6 of us. But just be honest about the wait time is all I ask

I regretfully downgrade the rating back to a 2 star again. Apparently service drops drastically when the business is busy. I’m so disappointed I’m not even going to bother writing a review.

Venturing out with Norm R in attempt to get in some pre-​expiration Groupon dining at one of my downtown favorites, but finding it closed up tight by 7:30 on a Friday night we had to venture elsewhere and were fortunate to stumble into the former wonderfully named «All Thai’d Up», now «Tom Yum» (I don’t know if different owners), and found it a comfortable place worth returning to and look forward to doing so.
I had the Tom Yum Hot & Sour made mild, with chicken and myriad other vegetables, and spices. On first glance I feared it would not prove a sufficiently meal to satisfy my then ravenous hunger, but it proved the perfect portion to comfortably fill without excess, though I could have eagerly savored an extra pint or liter of the well-​flavored, perfectly balance blend of flavors in that delightful broth. Add Tom Yum to your list of downtown dining destinations. I think you’ll enjoy.

Because the place we had originally planned to go to for Friday night dinner was closed at that time, we found this restaurant after walking around a bit in the downtown area and it’s a good thing we did. It was not busy at that time so we were seated immediately and after ordering, we did not have to wait long for our food to arrive. The food was good and reasonably priced, considering the downtown location. Service was friendly and the restaurant itself had a pleasant quiet atmosphere and a tasteful, subdued Asian theme. Finding a nearby place to is the only problem I could find for this restaurant, but that is the case for nearly every establishment in this downtown area.

When ordering a curry I ask which dish is the least sweet and I was recommended green curry! It turns out to be the sweetest curry dish I have had in Phoenix area. I complain to my waitress. She was nicely apologizing about that but she says the sweet is for American people. She said may be next time I should order some other dish I told her next time I will not be coming back and will opt for a more authentic Thai restaurant! She didn’t offer to re cook the dish to make it right! Also it’s a 12 dollars curry dish, if I want some Americanized Thai food I won’t be paying that much!

Definitely negative star. Waitress is very rude, food is not even good. When we ask to get our check, she didn’t even bother to ask if it’s seperate or together. I ask her to make it separate and she responded, we all came in group so meaning check is together. She can’t make it separate, i was really upset. She came back and gave us separate check anyway after being so rude. Guess what she charged us a 20% gratuity each even we are only party of 4. I undestand you can charged gratuity for party of 6 or 8 if im not mistaken. LIFEVANTAGE DISTRIBUTORS PLEASE DONT EAT AT THIS. SERVICE IS VERY POOR AND WAITRESS IS VERY RUDE…

Slow service, mediocre food.
Came in yesterday for late lunch, and spent about 50 minutes of our hour there waiting. Only one waiter on a busy Saturday. Got the chicken ginger and friend had noodles and a beer. Once good arrived I asked for seasoning, finished eating before the waiter even remembered to bring salt out. One drink refill and she forgot my friends water. No charge for the beer but that’s the only good thing. Food was meh, I could make better pretend Thai at home for less cost and in 20 minutes. If your hungry pick a better place.

No. Just. Plain. No.
I had a class downtown that started early, so the lunch break was earlier than most places opened. The sign on the door at Tom Yum claims they open at 10. To me, that means prep work has been done, and the kitchen is ready to take orders by 10. Maybe 10:10, on a bad day. I walked in at 10:20. The young lady behind the counter seemed put off to have me there, and said they weren’t able to do everything on the menu, as they just opened. My order was simple. An order of chicken satay, and a bowl of tom ka gai. She took the order, took my money (which I stupidly left a decent tip on), THEN told me it would be 45 minutes to an hour for my to-​go order to be ready. I was incredulous. This is downtown Phoenix. Most of the people who would be here for lunch get a total of 30 minutes, *maybe* an hour for lunch… no one can wait 45 minutes to an hour before getting the food!
I asked her to refund my card — I would find somewhere else to eat. She didn’t know how to do that. I asked her to call over the manager. There was none. Just her, and two men in the kitchen who also claimed to not know what to do. I asked her to call the owner. She went to the kitchen, and when she came back, told me my food would be ready within 10 minutes. WHAT? Somehow, my demanding my card be refunded enabled my food to cook in a fraction of the time? I should remember this magical trick everyplace I go that expects me to wait longer than I deem reasonable!
Anyway — I get my food and take it back to the classroom to eat. The chicken satay was painfully dry and bland. No amount of peanut sauce, hot sauce and cucumber could fix it. After two bites, I threw away the remainder. The soup was okay. If someone else bought it and brought it to me, I would be more than willing to eat the soup again. Short of that happening — the next time I will be in this spot is when it’s the new restaurant in this space, after Tom Yum is out of business.

I will visit again!
This place has a lot of tasty options.
I had the vegetables that included bamboo shoots and carrots. They were tasty and spicy along with the Jasmine rice.
The service was efficient and friendly.
The location is in walking distance for me. There are metered parking spots nearby.

First time at Tom Yum. Arrived at 1 PM on a Sunday and the place was empty. All of downtown was empty for Labor Day weekend.
The menus here are put together more like a cheap, fast food place rather than finer dining. It wasn’t visually friendly and took us a while to navigate.
Our daughter got Yellow Curry with Tofu. She’s not vegetarian but likes tofu. My wife got Beef Pad Thai while I ordered Royal Shrimp Supreme.
The shrimp was kinda weird. It came in a rich tamarind sauce but aside from some steamed broccoli and carrots, it was just shrimp. The Pad Thai was also in a strange sauce. Not horrible but not great.
The whole bill (water for drinks) came to $ 42 plus tip. Too high for the meal. Probably won’t go back since there are so many good Thai restaurants nearby.

The first time I came to this place they weren’t very welcoming the 2^nd and 3^rd time was better. The food is amazing I ordered the broccoli drunk in noodle w/​salmon. It was so awesome and the veggie noodle pot is great too.

Average Thai restaurant at a great location — the key reason these guy are still in business.
I have been to this place couple of time, primarily because it’s close to my work. I like their Hawaiian fried rice and Panang curry. I never liked their noodles though.
The reason for low rating is primarily due to their management and service. Service is horrible and most of time you would find two waitress for 25 tables. If you would like a soda refill, better ask for it while ²⁄₃ full. :)
Also, if you are with kids, try and skip this place. There is no kids menu. Overall a decent place to eat, but I would avoid it next time because of my continued bad experience with the service.

I eat at Tom Yum at least once a week. I do it because of the food. Sure, their service can be bad and slow. It’s normally when they are very crowded or understaffed. It’s rare to come in here at 12noon and get a table. Most of the time, the seats are filled. Really, the slow service does not bother me. They are always nice, I’ve never seen them be rude. They may take your order fast and move on in, but that’s during the lunch rush.
Anyway, back to the food. Their soup they give you as a starter (it’s free) is delicious. I always gobble it up. I love the following: Tom Yum soup, broccoli noodle, pad thai, yellow curry, massaman curry, thai fried rice, and sweet potato appetizer. The broccoli and eggplant dishes are also great for lunch!

Service was good. Nice atmosphere. I loved the pot stickers. I’m still not sure how I feel about the pad Thai, however. It wasn’t a bad dish, but its flavor wasn’t what I was expecting… I’m Not sure how to describe it. I’d probably eat here again, but I’d try something else… like the soup. I’ll check in again if I do make it back this weekend.

Tom YUM! This restaurant was near my hotel the Monday after the Superbowl. I was there at 2:00 pm, an odd hour for lunch. The restaurant was trashed when I entered with tons of un-​bussed tables. I didn’t think much of the restaurant being trashed because the entire downtown was a mess post Superbowl.
The waitstaff appeared stressed out but they were very polite. I ordered the lunch Pad Thai with shrimp and it was delicious. The shrimp were very fresh and plentiful. The sauce had a very good flavor with a medium spice level as requested. The lunch came with soup that didn’t look like much but was very tasty. The soup was a spicy broth with a few tofu pieces. A small spring roll came with the lunch as well. It wasn’t freshly fried but it was hot, so I’ll give them a pass.
Less than $ 11.00 for this yummy lunch, sold! I will return.

After circling the immediate area for somewhere to eat for what seemed to be hours, we settled on Tom Yum because it was decently packed which could have meant decent food but there were a couple tables open.
Mind you this was just earlier, the eve of Superbowl and the town has been in utter chaos with the 1 million Superbowl visitors that have come into the area.
It seemed one server was obviously frantic and trying to service a lot of the tables while the other 3 just coasted around with no sense of urgency.
Our orders were taken and you could tell the fellow was flustered but doing his best. The menu didn’t include a few items that we had been accustomed to seeing on Thai menus. We settled on chicken fried rice, beef pad see ewe and a bowl of tom kah – we did have to make small modifications to our entrees.
What we noticed however is that the tables weren’t being served in any real order. And it was our server who appeared to be responsible for most of the tables while the others kind of floated about.
Many tables waited for very unreasonably long periods of time. so long that a few had gotten up to leave.
We waited. And waited. And waited. An hour plus and still no food. We asked about our order to one of the floating girls and she said she would check on it. Another 15 minutes drifted and she came back with chicken pad see wew. «Sorry we ran out of beef so we made you chicken instead is that OK» well no it isn’t okay. First off we should have been given the option, secondly it should have been decades ago when they knew there was no beef available. She said I’m sorry there’s nothing I can do the kitchen ran out of beef.
Again we should have been notified of our options well in advance rather than them shoving us a plate of chicken.
I’m so disenchanted by our experience that I am still in shock.