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By far the best Thai (or Asian) restaurant in the East Suburbs. Fresh ingredients, lots of flavor, very nice and accommodating wait staff...which alone says a lot of any restaurant in all of NE Ohio.
Basil Chicken dish is excellent. Wife loves the Pad Thai, daughter orders fried rice every visit. All great.
Mint Cafe is the best Thai food in Cleveland - sorry Asian Grille in Lakewood! I recommend the Mint Garden Chicken (nice steamed vegetables and chicken with an amazing peanut sauce on the side), the Crazy Noodle (Bangkok-style flat rice noodles with a spicy peanutty sauce), the Pumpkin Curry (a seasonal special), or the Yellow Curry. Always very friendly service, family-friendly and reasonably group-friendly.
They also have great appetizers, like the edamame, tofu triangles and the crispy spring rolls. They have some more expensive dishes, but many of the dinner entrees are less than $10.
Great food, reasonable prices, nice atmosphere, and friendly service. For the guy who said there was no parking, there is a huge parking garage just one block down the street behind Marc's.
So, we decided to finally check out this place after the Honda dealership person told us this is 'home of the best Taiwanese food. 'LOL! Yes, and I speak Asian.
We ordered a noodle dish, a rice dish and the golden bags yelpers raved about. All ranged from ok to good. Nothing we had substantially stood out, and the taste easily dismissible.
Definitely not bad.
The price point is fair and the decor is classic 1990's Thai restaurant feel -- with earth-tone of a lighter heft. The flavours are mild for thai -- I'd prefer a little more punch. We asked for authentic hot, and got non-existent spicyness.
I'm going to have to do a little more exploring to determine my favourite Thai venue, but this place isn't too bad.
Service was brisk and almost brusque -- but that's okay, right?
The lack of parking in Coventry is annoying as are the Schutzstaffel - like ticketing policies of the CHPD. But I'll risk it for some Mint Cafe.
Everything I've tried has been good to great but the green curry is what makes me happy.
Even if it costs me an extra 25 bucks.
I get the red curry with tofu every god damn time I'm there and it's excellent, so my review is based on that. The other stuff must be good too but I'm a weirdo and don't want to risk it!
I think i would have given this place 4 stars if the following hadn't happened:
1) Lack of good restaurants in the Cleveland area causes me to frequent Mint Cafe one too many times
2) Going back to Thai food in the Bay Area, California made me remember what REALLY good Thai food is all about
But i am grateful for this place. It's authentic, there are at least Thai people who work here (keep your eye out for the asian Paris Hilton people!) Pad Thai and Crazy Noodles are good, but the chicken never fails to be dry. Yay for the bubble tea drinks, but boo for the tapioca in them which is often kinda hard in the middle if you know what i mean.
Mint Cafe stands out from the rest in Cleveland Heights, in a positive way. You should go and try it yourself.
I don't quite understand the love/hate reactions this place.
I wanted to love it, because my friend who lives in Coventry does. But we got take-out from there, and I thought it was certifiably bad. I didn't even want to finish.
I got basic dishes - spring rolls and veggie pad thai. It always amazes me when fried spring rolls are tasteless. I mean, they're fried! You're starting off so ahead of the game there. The pad thai was also just really bland and flavorless. I might be a bit of a snob about Thai food, having eaten many phenomenal meals in Thailand and having visited Thai restaurants around the world (often my first choice in capital cities). But I think I'm forgiving. I've had lots of versions of pad thai that did not resemble pad thai at all, but they were still good. I can accept that. But Mint Cafe just served up a bad dish. I'd say it was a one-off, except that I see so many others had the same experience. Maybe the other dishes, like the curries, are better, but personally I'm not going to bother to find out. If you're a Thai restaurant that can't make pad thai, you lose in my book.
Also, I ordered the veggie pad thai with just vegetables. And instead I got it with tofu. That is a pet peeve of mine - just because I don't want meat does not mean I want tofu. I was clear about this in my order, and it still got screwed up. This is not a fatal flaw, I can just pick the tofu out. But it was just another strike against Mint.
Go to Lemongrass. I've been going there for years now and they are consistent with the Thai basics.
The Mint Cafe, is OK...... Food was beautifully presented (we had the lady in green salmon which truly looks like art :0, veggie pad thai, and scallop eggplant) and had lots of fresh veggies, which is a real plus.... Also, they served large portions, which bordered on enormous in the case of the veggie pad Thai.
The food is nooooootttt spicy here, which depending on your view is either a plus or in my case a minus. I thought the veggie pad thai was unbelievably bland and neither of the two main dishes was spicy either which made the flavor of the curry off (too sweet, no spice - they eliminated something I think!!!!)
This place is pretty good.
For tastier and spicier at the same price poing I would head up Cedar Rd and check out Lemongrass on Lee Rd.
A Coventry gem.
The food at the Mint Cafe is absolutley wonderful. It's light yet filling and very delicious. The service is very attentive, friendly, and knowledgable of the dishes on the menu. I have yet to have a dish here I did not like nor have I had one I was able to finish. The Pad Thai Country style is my favorite dish so far followed in a close second by any of the curries. It is very reasonably priced and great for lunch or dinner. Definitely a place to try.
I am not an expert when it comes to Thai food so I went with my friend from Thailand, and overall it was an OK place, they can make the dishes as spicy or as bland as you want, also the specialty drinks are good, however for a better Thai place go to Bombay Palace on Mayfield, the food is better and more authentic
I could eat my weight in Thai food. And I'm a big guy.
That being said, if I had my choice of places to eat 250 lbs of Pad Thai, this would be the place. Deeee-Licious.
I recently tried this out with some more newbies to the Mint. All of us liked the dishes we ordered.
I got great veggie rolls and the tofu curry. The curry isn't really juicy like I'm used to but great flavor. I liked that there was a good amount of tofu. Sometimes you wish people would give you lots, well Mint does! The peppers and green beans were cooked to perfect crisp bites. I fully enjoyed my food. No doubt at all.
The service was very nice and efficient. A+
I was really exicted to come here.
I was slightly dissappointed.
The thai iced coffee was great!
The spring rolls were so-so.
The pad thai was not as good as I wanted it to be. Maybe I was just in a bad mood.
The food came out fast, and the waitress was extremely pleasant.
The bathrooms were close to clean.
There was a lot of variety on the menu. I just was not as crazy about the place as I thought it would be. I have definatly had better pad thai. And I wanted it to be more spicy.
I am a bit biased, as one of the people who works here is a close friend of mine.
That said, this Thai food is still really excellent, and by far the best I have found in Cleveland, making Coventry a new destination spot for good and inexpensive Asian food with the triumvirate of Mint Cafe, Pacific East, and Coventry Hunan.
Do you know when Thai food is good? It is when you are eating the curry, and you have eaten all the meat and vegetables that were in the curry dish, but you still put more rice on your plate, just so you can smother the rice with the sauce. Mint Cafe reaches this level of Thai food, and I will definitely be going back.
While you are there, try the Jasmine Lime drink, it is so good and refreshing!
Authentic and excellent. I like penang gai (curry chicken), the tom yum kun (shrimp broth), and salmon.
The food is good and comes out SO FAST. I am impressed! I don't have to pay the meter in the garage for more than 40 min.
My favoritie dish here is the Massaman Curry with Shrimp. Oh sweet potato and roasted peanuts...so divine.
Pad Thai is sweet but I like it that way.
The portions are perfect.
Only gripe about this place is that a waitress once told me I didn't tip enough (and I sure did- and isn't tip supposed to be optional anyway?). She asked for more and I didn't think that was very classy!!
Very good. Friendly waitstaff.
I love to come here and eat! I often crave the tofu pad thai and tofu green curry.
OMG OMG OMG, like, OMG! This place is great - great food, great presentation, generally enthusiastic service.
My favorite appetizer is the Golden Bags (don't laugh, they're named perfectly in earnest, and they're tasty. Golden Bags are pretty, too).
My favorite dishes here are the basil friend chicken, a salmon dish that I think is called Lady in Green, I don't think I've met a Mint Cafe curry that I didn't like, either.
I dunno if everything is good here.
But I do know that at least one thing here is AMAZING. I've been here probably 15 times, and I only get Thai basil. Ground chicken, onion, pepper, deep-fried basil with a nice basil-y sauce, and white rice. If you're not salivating yet, you should be.
Actually the food is better than most thai restaurants in Cleveland. If you go there, you must get the bubble tea. They have a very good one. I personally like the spicy tom yum goon. If you not afraid of spicy food, then get it. They also have a good selection of noodles and curry dishes. This place has country thai phai. Its very good and delicious.
My friends in Cleveland are HUGE fans of this place. I was really glad that I got the chance to check it out while I was there. It's a really nice atmosphere that seems sophisticated, but its still a casual dining place. The servers are really friendly and great. The food is delicious, portions are great and the price is fantastic.
I went here the other day with a friend and had the country pad thai. The noodles were ok, but the chicken and tofu were dry, and it was slightly bland. I tried a mango smoothie with tapioca too, and while the tapioca "bubbles" were pretty good, the mango, while made with real fruit, was also bland because the mangoes themselves weren't very ripe. In all, I'd say it was a pretty mediocre meal.
This thai place just opened this year but it is REALLY really tasty. The menu offers your typical items such as padthai and curries, but there is something for everyone here. The fried eggroll with banana and chocolate is very tasty! The service is extremely friendly. I have always left Mint Cafe with a full belly and a smile. For thai, it is a little more expensive than average so expect to spend about 10-15 dollars per dish.
I'm not sure why this was ever given 2 stars as a rating. It is so not! The food is amazing....to the point where if you weren't sitting in a public place, you would pick that plate up and just lick the sauce off of it, savoring every last taste. Try the mango curry with pork (or your preferred meat).
i'm going to have to agree with previous posters that mint cafe is great. after my first visit, i truely worried about mint cafe and her welfare, for anyone who has spent the last 4 years in cleveland hts knows that that corner has bad karma (not referring to the previous restaurant 'karma', but the fact that restaurants don't stay in business..) but i think based on crowdedness and awesomeness, mint cafe may be there to stay. i'd like to say i love everything on the menu, but i honestly can't order anything else besides the drunken noodles because it is s.o. g.o.o.d....
I'd have to give this place a big thumbs up. We just tried it tonight for the first time. After putting up with the disappointing food and service at Karma, and the glacial service at the Soul Food Vegetarian (shoulda called it the "slow food vegetarian"), this place is a revelation. The service was outstanding, and lightning quick; within just a few minutes of ordering, our appetizers arrived. The "golden bag," (tofu skins filled with veggies and deep fried), and the Summer Rolls were both good, and the presentation was excellent. A few minutes after we finished the appetizers, the dinners arrived. We both got noodle dishes, and they were extremely good; the shrimp were done perfectly, the veggies still had some crispness, and the sauces were done just right. A great start; I hope this place does well in what's been a snakebit location. Good prices, good ambience (understated and tasteful), and excellent food. What more could you want on Coventry?
Very good Thai food. Portions are manageable and food is very fresh. Definitely a step above other Thai places I have tried in the Heights.
Best Thai in Cleveland. More attention to detail of spicing and flavors than some of other places, though the portions do seem slightly smaller. Vegetarian friendly. Brown rice available (and served in rather, um, unusual cone-shaped configurations). It's a busy place so expect a wait especially on the weekends. Be sure to feed the meter -- Cleveland Heights traffic cops don't kid around.
Cleveland, OH
Category: Thai
Cleveland, OH
Category: Thai
Cleveland Heights, OH
Category: Japanese
Cleveland, OH
Category: Thai
Cleveland, OH
Category: Thai
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