Royal Spices Thai Cuisine

Service is a little slow, but the food is great and the lunch specials are excellently priced!

There was only one employee working. The restaurant was empty. It was like he did not expect to be open for business that day. The glasses and plates were dirty, the tom kha was gritty and lumpy, the spring rolls were anything but fresh, and the drunken noodles had no taste at all. In addition, the restaurant was unventilated and filled with smoke as the food was cooked. The employee could not even make change when I wanted to pay my bill. Two other groups came in while I was there and left before they ordered.
This restaurant has no redeeming qualities.

This place is great. We stopped in on a Saturday afternoon and they had a great lunch special menu. I’ve traveled the country eating thai food and I loved it! I can’t believe this place has only three stars.

No question really, the best Pad Thai in SD! The curries are just so so, but the Pad Thai is phenomenal. If you’ve been to Thailand then I guarantee you won’t be disappointed by the food from here.

If your restaurant is empty, look at your food quality and then look at your service. Something tells me that Royal Spices doesn’t really care about either. I love Thai food, and there are so many great Thai places out there with chefs and owners who enjoy pleasing their guests. I don’t know why this place is even open, frankly, and I’m not trying to be mean.
The hostess was this gruff woman who lost me at hello, and I still don’t know what I was served. I had ordered the yellow curry, and what I received was yellow, but that’s all it had in common with that Thai specialty. How can a Thai restaurant mess up a stock item like that? It was sickeningly sweet, and I literally only had one bite. I also give myself 1 star for not having the courage to ask for my money back (I still kick myself over that). I’ll never go back unless I see an «under new ownership» sign in the window.

I kind of feel sorry for this place because you can tell it is hurting for business. We tried going to Phil’s BBQ down the street and realized that the line was doing multiple laps around the building so we figured we would try this place out. Walking in at 8:30 on a Saturday night to a completely empty restaurant made me a little concerned but we decided to continue in.
The food was pretty average and kind of bland. I got a BBQ dish that had no spices but was cooked fairly well. They had a really good peanut sauce for their salad which was nice.
The service here was ok… the guy who was serving us appeared to be the owner and was the only waiter in the joint (not a huge surprise there). He didn’t speak much English and didn’t seem to be too concerned with much other than checking the cash register (which felt awkward in the empty restaurant because it felt like you could see this place going out of business).
The price here was a little higher than superior Thai restaurants (see Amarin Thai in Hillcrest for example). Overall, this place is pretty average but with so many good Thai joints in San Diego, I don’t know how much longer it will survive.

Because it was too late to say NO not Royal Thai for lunch I ended meeting a friend here for lunch. The hostess was so happy to see us come in and we can sit anywhere (place was basically empty).
My friend ordered yellow curry with chicken and I got the red curry with chicken from their lunch special. Our meal was served like in 5 minutes WOW that was quick! comes with ginger soup, salad with eggroll. Still not impressed with the food. I asked for medium spicy, but it was mild. Disappointed again on my second visit.
I’ll make sure NO third visit here. Two stars because the ginger soup was good with chunks of ginger.

I may be a Thai, who doesn’t know her Thai, but I do know good food and Royal Spices Thai Cusine is not good Thai food.
They always say that you should never walk into a restaurant that is empty. Especially a restaurant that is empty at 8 o’clock on a Saturday night. But I decided to give Royal Spices Thai Cusine a shot anyways
Boy should I have really listened to that rule.
I ordered 3 noodle dishes. I like my variety and I wanted my non-​Thai boyfriend to try my favorite Thai noodle dishes. This being his first time and all. And he likes spicy so I made all the dishes spicy, because I like spicy too. But they were not spicy. I would have to describe the heat level in these three dishes as mild. Very mild. I had the Pad See Ew, Thai Chow Mein, and the Pad Thai. All were edible but trust me, that’s not a very good way to describe food. Everything lacked the kick that I thought making it spicy would have. And the noodles all had this funky smell. It’s hard to describe but it was funnnkaay!
FAIL.
Rule of thumb, NEVER go to a restaurant that is empty. It’s empty for a reason.

Brought my husband here and he really enjoyed the food. We really like the décor and atmosphere. It’s a perfect date place. It’s not a fancy place, but it’s cozy enough.
We both ordered their dinner combination where we get a soup, appetizer that came with one spring roll, small salad, and 2 fried shrimps, then you choose your entrée, and a dessert. It was $ 16 per person. I personally think it’s overpriced in comparison to the portion sizes. We should be getting more food. I ordered the beef spicy basil. It was ok, nothing spectacular. My husband ordered chicken yellow curry and he really liked it. Then we both had fried bananas for dessert.
Service was nice. The server was ok. She seemed like she was annoyed with having to work. The busgirl was a SWEETHEART! She was so nice, didn’t speak much english, and so sweet. My husband and I both noticed that she was getting picked on by the other workers. We felt bad for her.

Has this place been going downhill for long?
Today I ordered a dish with green beans; the beans were not long and green but diced short and… previously frozen. Grey. Limp. Disgusting.

We were actually about to go to L&L’s or Chipotle right next door until this place caught my eye.
We haven’t had Thai food in quite sometime so what a perfect time to do so.
It was an early day of the week an hour before closing. The place was relatively empty. The ambiance had a cool vibe. Décor shows you were definitely in a Thai place, but had accents of modern fusion-​type environment. It was nice to see the open kitchen where the chefs would be working. Definitely not your typical old school décor you would expect from other Thai restaurants.
I had one of their combo’s and my GF had the Pad Thai.
My combo was about $ 11 and the Pad Thai $ 8 – 9. I forget the specifics. My plate consisted of beef skewers with peanut dipping sauce, salad with a Thai peanut dressing, spring roll, salmon sushi roll, 2 friend shrimp with a sweet and sour dipping sauce, and soup.
A bit weird to see a Thai place have sushi, but hey I enjoyed every last bite of my dish. Notice I did not mention rice, because it doesn’t come with any. As for my gf’s Pad Thai, just a note to folks, this is the“wet” style Pad Thai. I enjoyed my sampling of it. A bit sweet, but enjoyable. Had plenty of chicken and a good size portion all together.
Overall I enjoyed my dinner here, so why do I give it only 4 stars if I did not find anything wrong? Just a bunch of little things. The waitress was very nice, but lagged considering there was no one really there. Also the price of Thai food still seems a bit much for what it is, and this place did not consider breaking away from those ties. Nevertheless, if you want to satisfy your Thai fix, this place will do the job.

Had dinner on a Friday night. Food was good, nothing particularly excellent though. The décor is nice. High back booths and nice Thai décor are inviting. Special gold star for the Thai karaōke music videos being played on the tv screens throughout. Prices were fair, although they touted «new lower prices» in the window, yet everything seemed normal to higher priced. I hate to have seen their prices before. Service was fine, although there was a language barrier. The lady barely understood what we were ordering. We had to point at most of the stuff on the menu. That said, our dinners were good and we left full.
Entertainment for this dinner (which we always seem to have at one extent or another):
1. Couple sits next to us
2. Lady gets call
3. Lady excuses herself. Explains to boyfriend/​husband/​significant other she will ‘be right back“
4. Boyfriend/​husband/​significant other explains that food her food will be cold and ice tea will be warm
5. Lady leaves anyways
6. Boyfriend/​husband/​significant other eats the entire meal.
7. Lady not to be seen again while we are there… and cut!

Let’s start with the good stuff…
**I love high back booths. Very cozy.
**Idk if this is really «good» but there is a tv in the bathroom?
**Tom yum soup is delicious and hearty. Spring rolls are among the best I’ve had at a Thai restaurant. Fried won tons and very good as well.
**The *flavor* of the peanut sauce is fairly good… when you first taste it. Unfortunately, my review of the peanut sauce does not end there… you’ll read more later.
**Chicken satay was good. I’ve had better, and definitely had worse.
And now for the not-​so-​great…
**Peanut sauce is very oily and has an odd aftertaste.
**Pra-​luck was disgusting. It was a good thing I had the starters. The chicken tasted undercooked. It was extremely oily. The sauce was fairly bland. I ordered it medium spicy and it didn’t have any kick at all.
**Service was mediocre. My server may have just been having a bad day, but she had a bit of a scowl the whole time and didn’t seem friendly at all. Didn’t ever ask how my food was. My drink sat empty for 5 minutes (there were only 2 tables with guests in the restaurant) as the employees watched TV, so I had to seek out a refill.

The food was very very salty. The spring rolls are pretty good. The yellow curry was really not impressive. Extremely salty, and very thick. It wasn’t the creamy, but thinner texture that most Thai curries have. It was heavy and thick. The vegetable soup that came with the combo was also rather mediocre. It was made with canned vegetables, and just tasted like a bunch of fish sauce and salt.

My wife and I have been coming here since it opened. We are fans of the servers and the food. When we planned a trip to Thailand over 2 years ago, one of the servers gave us tons of advice and offered to put us in touch with her family for local contact.
The food is slightly Americanized, but very tasty and the ingredients are always fresh. As a snobbish foodie, I would not say it is the best Thai food I’ve had, but it is dependable. Considering that most Thai food in Point Loma is downright nasty, this is one that I would be happy to recommend. It is comfortable and a good place to get your Asian fix.

I’m royally bummed out at this place. I love Thai food, my father is Thai and Ive been to Thailand for extended periods before.
I dont go out for Thai food as much as I’d like because I’m usually disappointed and then I feel as if I wasted my appetite and money.
With that said, I’m giving 3 stars. The food is decent but toned down. and I dont just mean that they eased up on the spice factor. Its Americanized, white-​washed, whatever you want to call it.
Bummer.

My girlfriend and I have been here many times and we love it!
The food is excellent. We always go for lunch and I generally stick to the same 3 dishes simply because they’re my favorites. For lunch you get a huge meal for $ 9 — hard to beat. It generally turns into two meals. I’ve loved it every time. I generally get the Pad Thai, Peanut Sauce with chicken or beef, and drunken spices noodles. My girlfriend typically goes with the yellow or red curry dish and is equally as happy.
I’ll admit the service isn’t always the quickest, but the waitresses are very nice and pleasant. Quick example: I usually order the Thai Iced Tea (which is amazing), but one time asked how the Thai Iced Coffee was. Our waitress said it was very good and I should order it, but if I don’t like it she’ll bring me a Thai Iced Tea instead. The Thai Iced Coffee was just as great, so no exchange necessary, but it was a nice gesture.
I highly recommend this place for Thai food, especially the lunch special. And MAKE SURE you get the Thai Iced Tea or Iced Coffee. You won’t regret it.

Food was good… typical Thai food, which is good, when you want Thai :)
Service was sloooowwww. We had to ask for things a couple times or make some serious eye contact before being helped throughout our meal.
I highly recommend the spring rolls (don’t bother with the shrimp in them though, they barely put any in for the extra charge.

I’ve been here 3 times, or was it 2? I can’t remember! But as you can see, I would definitely come back.
I’ve had the:
thai iced coffee: ABSOLUTELY DEEEEELISH.
drunken noodles: Pretty delish, I wish they put more egg on the noodles. that’s just how I like my noodles.
Spring rolls: Pretty good… not good for a first date, but I did it! LOL. I don’t like the sauce that it comes with. Spring rolls for me, I like them Vietnamese styled.
The rice dishes: Good. Still would rather have it Vietnamese styled. The fish sauce is pretty heavy on the fish sauce.
Beef salad: Was yum! I liked what it was sauteed in.
The décor is super sleek. My boyfriend said they have a nice plasma in their bathroom. The girls there are super nice. They notice when people come in. Unfortunately, they didn’t have the beef jerky thing… which kind of bummed my boyfriend out and he settled. But she was nice enough to bring another menu when she came back to tell us that they didn’t have it.
I’m a fan. I got my extra veggies, too. No charge =) AAAAAAND, only spent $ 40 on dinner for two.

Fool me once your fault, fool me twice my fault!!!
**CAUTION WE SERVE THAI WITH HAIR** They should have this sign on their front door. This has happened twice now; once to a co-​worker and now to me.
I have been here several times with co-​workers for lunch and I want to like this place I really do, I wanted them to stay open and give them business. Now to my chagrin they can take their hairballs and shove it.
I brought a group of 14 here, I was served last (15 minutes after the first lunch was served) and it had a big black HAIR (thank goodness not a curly hair, it was nice and long)
$ 7.95 lunch special hair and tofu. yummy!
You are out of your tree if you think I am going to eat human hair with no Belvedere. I will not return on the flip side; if you are a cat on the wagon who likes hairballs, mediocre thai and rude servers this place is for you!
*HOLLA hairballs*