Spices Thai Cafe

Beautiful veggie spring rolls! Order these for takeout and you will do well here. Reasonably priced menu for the location, too. The bummer was the soulless penang curry and tom kha soup that betrayed that art of Thai cuisine. There was also a draft running through the restaurant. Bring a jacket in the winter.

Love this place — their curries and soups are great. I regularly pick up from this location and the service is fast and friendly.

Absolutely fantastic food and service. Our wait was just seconds and our waitress was terrific. The food was made just right. The Tom Yum Kong soup was one of the best I’ve had in years. I would definitely go back and bring more friends. The atmosphere was delightful.

I recommend coming here for lunch because it includes a soup and the main dish for about $ 8 – 12 depending if you want vegetarian, chicken, etc. I work around the area so I come here pretty often and the food is great! I always get the pad Thai with chicken :)!

FOOD POISONING!!!
Please beware of the food here. Last night I ordered some food for pickup. I ordered the chicken and coconut soup and the chicken pad thai. The diarrhea occurred about an hour after eating dinner. The food tasted kind of stale and almost old but didn’t taste rotten. Today when I was hungry I heated up the remaining food and about 2 hours later I was over the toilet violently throwing up. I will never eat from this restaurant again.

Living in Carmel Valley, our choices for Thai restaurants are limited so everyone goes to Spices Thai Café by default. Over the past year we have been eating here because it’s edible and can pass for «Thai food». But our recent experience pushed us to the point that we cannot support this restaurant any longer.
We ordered pick up this week. As usually, we called 30 minutes in advance knowing that the food takes about 20 – 25 minutes to cook. We arrived 40 minutes later and nobody could find our order. The lady helping us initially said that we didn’t place an order (we had proof on our phone that we called them!). Then she changed her story and said that our food was still being cooked (really after 40 minutes?). When we voiced our dissatisfaction, there was no manager in house to help us and the lady just walked away as we were talking to her (totally rude)! No apology. No compensation for their mistake. The poor customer service is bad enough to say it’s not worth coming here BUT IT GETS BETTER…
Then our food was ready after another 15 minutes (after an 1 hour of calling our order in). We took it home. Our salmon Panang had overcooked/​chewy pieces of salmon and the curry was not even cooked. It was lukewarm coconut milk with some Thai paste sprinkled on top. Totally unacceptable for an $ 18 dish!
Convenience is no longer enough of a reason to come back here. We would rather drive 9 miles to get decent Thai food. If you can cook good Thai food, open a restaurant in Carmel Valley! You will thrive because there’s no real competition in this area.

I knew that I didn’t care for the pad see ew at Spices Thai but I decided to give it another try last night. Unfortunately, it was even worse than I remembered. It doesn’t have hardly any flavor. The noodles are so light-​colored that it looked like they hadn’t added any of the sauce to the pan. At other Thai restaurants, the noodles are a medium brown color but here they are practically transparent. I ate a few bites but quickly decided it wasn’t up to par. I’m going to try to salvage it as leftovers and add my own sauce to the noodles and chicken.
Update: I created my own pad see ew sauce using a recipe I found online and added it to my leftover noodles and chicken. The recipe used sweet soy sauce, regular soy sauce, white vinegar, sugar and water. I also added some minced garlic. All of this made the noodles edible but I shouldn’t have to create my own sauce for the noodles.
On the plus side, the portion was huge. Now if only it tasted good too. I much prefer the pad see ew at Taste of Thai in Del Mar. It’s worth the drive up the freeway.

NOT RECOMMENDED. This place deserves no stars at all. Large portions are NOT a substitute for good flavors. Host was rude and ignored us while seating other guests who arrived after us. In hindsight she must have been signaling us something which we ignored. Spring rolls were OK. a bit stale though in retrospect probably should have stopped there. Chicken breast was a full breast of huge chicken on cabbage. Tasteless as it seems and very dry. «Thai» ribs where similar concept. Both had no flavors other than cabbage. This wasn’t Thai food… nothing was even reminiscent of any Thai flavors. Or any flavor at all. Utterly disgusting. Would have been better off going to the Souplantation nearby.

I was going to give Spices 2 stars – the food isn’t very authentic, or at least, you can’t really find authentic dishes on the menu. It’s pretty much white people Thai food, and often too salty at that. Plus, vegetables make appearances places where they don’t belong – way too much zucchini and mushroom. Plus, the prices are at least $ 1.50 more than they should be.
HOWEVER, I forgot my leftover tofu with green beans at my parents’ place, and I really regret that. I was really looking forward to having that as leftovers. So, 3 stars.

Love all the vegetarian options! Also that they give you a pitcher of water so you don’t have to wait for the waiters to refill it. Very clean and nice environment. The lunch special portions are smaller but they’ll definitely fill you up. They also serve vegetable rolls/​wontons with your dish. The staff was extremely attentive, which was great. Would definitely come back if I’m in the area again :)

Bottom Line: A quiet Thai restaurant great for satisfying Thai cravings worthy of 3.5 stars.
I went to Spices Thai Café in Carmel Valley/​Del Mar to have dinner with some girlfriends and it was an enjoyable experience. Here are a few notes about Spices Thai and my overall experience:
— Inside dining room is quiet and includes cloth tableclothes and napkins. Alternatively, you can dine on the front patio or get it to go. The dining room was comfortable and a great place for conversation.
— The service here was attentive and I appreciate that the servers were also dressed nicely in shirts and ties.
— The food was tasty and definitely satisfied my cravings for Thai but its not the best I’ve had. I ordered the See Eyew noodles and really like the chunks of fresh, blanched broccoli and carrots. Also, I ordered my See Eyew with shrimp and they didn’t skimp on the shrimp which I appreciated. I had a bite of the Pad Thai and thought that was good as well.
Overall, I would rate Spices Thai Café with 3.5 stars but I am rounding up in favor of small, local business.

This place is really hit or miss for me but it is hard to beat their lunch specials. I’ve tried several items on the menu here and generally would recommend sticking with their cirrus or their fried rices. Really like their spicy fried rice and the regular fried rice as well. Lunch is a fantastic deal here because it includes soup, salad and fried wontons and egg rolls in addition to your entrée. Service is very quick during lunch time and good during dinner time as well. It’s not the best Thai food in SD, but good for a work lunch and good for groups as well.

My favourite Thai place. Lots of good food for a reasonable price. Typically we get lunches here, all of them are good.
Though service and food quality and spiciness scale sometimes float.

I am a huge fan of their Mee Krob! So many thai places do not make this dish but it is a thai staple and one of my cheat meals. I have to crave this for weeks before i break down and pick it up. It is consistent and what I love about this is it is crunchy, sweet and spicy especially when I dump a whole container of Thai chili on it. Topped with shrimp, chix and carrot as well as cabbage and parsley. I like to add some cilantro also. The staff isn’t that friendly, they are actually pretty quiet but if you need something, you have to ask for it. It gets busy at lunch and noisy but there is plenty of space. Plenty of parking in the Vons lot. If I am just craving something, I would rather call and pick it up. Never had a problem. The vibe is a bit loud and cafeteria-​like for a dinner date, but good for lunch with a bud. They also have a bar and an outdoor patio.

I came here for lunch because I’m a well known lunch special groupie. It was a sunny day and I decided to eat outside so that the world could see the chick eating by herself and taking pics of her food.
$ 8.95 got me a huge amount of food. I ordered the pad Thai with tofu.
Lunch special soup — they brought out a small coup of soup very fast. It has powdered coconut milk which isn’t that bad and a lemongrass sort of flavor. The veggies are your standard. I didn’t even notice that the soup was included so I was happy with it.
My food came out super fast. That is not always a good thing but I was happy it didn’t take forever.
The salad was good and it has a curry dressing. It was small but I was happy to get more veggies.
The fried won tons and egg rolls we’re passable. I will say the insides were a bit mushy but I’m not super picky about fried things.
The pad Thai was a 5 spicy level but tasted like a 0. I asked for a spice rack and they brought it out. It was a huge amount of food and they did not skimp on tofu or veggies. The noodles were not as fresh as I like but it was ok.
I add an extra star for the nice waiter who did a great job.
While I am not raving about this place I would say lunch is a good value and I will probably end up here again.

Spices isn’t the best Thai food I’ve ever had, but it’s a good spot to grab a quick lunch and curb my Thai food cravings!
I’ve been here many times over the last few years and it never fails. I usually order the spicy noodles which are delicious. Service is decent and the prices are reasonable, especially for the lunch specials. Surprisingly the lunch specials are even offered on weekends!
Be careful of their spice scale. Depending on the day al evel of 5 can be not spicy at all or very spicy!

Above average strip-​mall Thai restaurant. They have a decent patio protected from the parking lot by potted plants. I love the Hot Basil Chicken lunch special: a ton of basil chicken, a couple wontons, a couple small spring rolls, and a small salad, all for around $ 12, although they never make it spicy enough, even when I ask for ⁸⁄₁₀ spiciness level. They do have the standard selection of hot sauces to kick it to the next level however.
Def recommend for lunch of you live or work in the area and are craving Thai.

I mean it’s not the best Thai food I have ever had but it does the trick when I’m craving some curry. The lunch specials are where it’s at! For about $ 12 get soup, small salad, two egg rolls and two wontons, your choice of curry/​noodles etc and rice! A lot of food for the price. I got there right at 11am and was the first one there. When I left at noon there wasn’t one empty seat! So arrive earlier to get seated before the lunch rush.

Spices is pretty much average at best… I mean there really isn’t anything special about this place that’ll really knock your socks off. I have been coming here during lunch for the past several years, based on the convenience factor alone. Overall, the place is always crowded around lunch time, it’s loud and the service is very hit or miss. My go to dish is the pineapple curry with chicken, it’s actually pretty dang good, but the 1 – 10 spiciness factor is very subjective and changes day by day. Meaning a spicy level of 3 today isn’t necessarily a 3 tomorrow… Very inconsistent on their levels of spice. Regardless, this place is good for a quick fix, or lunch but I wouldn’t necessarily recommend this place for a night out or if you’re trying to impress anyone.
Pros–
Taste
Soup
Price
Prompt
Location
Menu
Plentiful outdoor seating
Thai ice tea
Cons–
Service is hit or miss
Crowded
Inconsistent
Strip mall location
Parking

Great place for lunch because their lunch specials are a really good deal! You can get a curry/​rice/​or noodle dish for around $ 10 and it comes with soup, a mini salad (that has an interesting curry dressing), 2 fried eggrolls, and 2 fried curry wontons which I love! I looked around and noticed a lot of people not eating their curry wonton! It made me sad that people weren’t eating it. I wanted it.
I really liked the Pad Thai, even though the taste is kind of different from other places. I think it’s something you either like or you don’t, but if you want a normal pad thai taste you might not want to get pad thai here. I really liked the chewiness of the noodles though. I tried a bit of the yellow curry and that was good too! The curries here are a bit on the watery side. I would have liked them to be a bit thicker.