Dee Daa

Dee Daa is an adorable Thai-​fusion restaurant that has managed to stay open in spite of how mediocre and unauthentic the food is. Don’t get me wrong, the staff are pretty nice, the prices are very reasonable for Midtown, the space is really cute, and the food is edible. I mean, most Americans don’t really want authentic food anyway. But the food is far from great (even when you factor in how affordable it is for Midtown) and there are definitely service mishaps that can be prohibitive.
I’ve tried Dee Daa on three occasions.
1) There’s a big line out the door and this looks like a cute place! Let’s try it! I put an order in for pad see ew. Twenty minutes go by and I realize that everyone who ordered before me is still waiting for their food to come out. Thirty minutes go by and word leaks that out of the X number of line chefs that usually work the kitchen, ONLY ONE showed up for work today and this poor guy has to do everything. It ultimately takes an hour to get my food. An hour in Midtown is a truly unacceptable amount of time. On top of it, the curry is rather bland/​watery, there is less than a cup of the curry/​vegetable/​chicken to add to a cup and a half of rice, and the chicken is dry. There is no evidence of lemongrass or basil or chilis.
2) My coworkers convince me that my first experience is a fluke and it never takes them more than 15 minutes to get food. I try a Pad See Ew. It is very liberally dusted with chili flakes, which are the only source of flavor in the dish but makes the dish regrettably one note. The beef is a little tough. At least the noodles aren’t over cooked and there’s a few vegetables. I also get a Thai Iced Tea, which is notably half sugar and delicious, but most definitely not authentic or potent on the flavor or caffeine scale.
3) I order a panang curry. Fifteen minutes later I get a pad thai. I take the pad thai (why not? and the counter staff were kind enough to comp me for my next meal automatically) and note that its pretty sweet and peanut-​y, but there’s nothing more complex to the sauce. Am slightly disappointed. I’m not even sure I’ll go back to redeem my next meal because its all so MEH.

Literally threw out my food before finishing it. Service was excellent, but man the food. The «pad see ew» is literally fettucine pasta, wtf? Chicken was undercooked. And kale was too raw. Worst restaurant I’ve been to in NYC.

Got the shrimp pad Thai. I would not recommend getting it here. There’s a restaurant one street up that has much better shrimp pad Thai for the same price. The sauce was not the traditional pad Thai sauce. There were no peanuts nor egg in it. The shrimp was grilled which I have never seen in pad Thai before and the noodles weren’t the traditional noodles. If you are looking for a pad Thai that is different from the traditional pad Thai then try it here. If you want more of the traditional pad Thai taste, which is what I’m looking for when I crave pad Thai, then go to the restaurant that is one street up next a little ways down from coco the bubble tea place.

The owners should be ashamed to call this a «THAI» restaurant.
Judging from the exterior/​interior design of this «grab and go» restaurant, you would think it’s a fro-​yo place. Overly bright colors and logo does not speak thai food to me at all. I should have known better before stepping in here.
It was very hard to order because the TV screen’s menu kept changing. No idea why they chose to put it on slide show. I literally had to get out of line to grab a physical menu in order to know what I want to order.
Staff members were chatty… with one another. I’m NOT racist but why would you have all black staff members working at an asian restaurant? But besides that, they were being giggly and talking loudly with one another. The girl who took my orders was so distracted by some guy in the back that she didn’t even hand me a plastic cup for my drinks.
I ordered the Massaman curry. BLEND. Literally no flavor. Portion was tiny for $ 8. And FYI, the ratio of peanuts to curry should not be 23:1. There were SO many peanuts in my curry. Pork was hard, you could tell it was pre cooked. Potatoes were however undercooked. I did add an egg my order and the egg was cooked beautifully. However, I didn’t finish the dish. It was sitting on my desk and I kept thinking «why do I know this smell?» … and then I realized it smelled like my cat’s favorite cat food. YUCK. How do y’all do that? No flavor yet pungent smell? Interesting…
Thai ice tea was already filled up in a «self-​serve» cylinder. Disgusting. It reminded me of the containers chicken feed come in. And as expected, thai ice tea tasted watered down. Not good.
Overall, I am definitely not coming back here. Food is not good at all.

I recently went here for the first time it will also be my last time. I was beyond upset when I saw the person cooking my order texting on his cell phone at the same time. I have never seen it before anywhere so imagine my shock when I saw him doing that — a spatula in one hand over the stove and an iPhone in the other. It was beyond unsanitary and had I not already paid I would have walked out. It made me disgusted thinking where the cell phone had been, what if it had dropped in the pan, etc… Thank you but no I will not be going here again.

Not sure why people tend to give these guys below Avg. reviews. I have been please each time I have ordered from Dee Daa (as well as each person in my office). The pricing is fair, the food is solid, they got the food out quickly. Favorite Dish: Pad See Ew Noodles w/​beef.

Hands down the worst Thai food I’ve ever had. Why? Totally bland taste. No zest, no zing, nothing exotic. If blindfolded, I’d swear it came out of a box that said Kraft.
Oh and get this: they don’t have soy sauce! At an Asian restaurant!
I also thought it was odd that by the time I sat down three employees, friendly I will say, had told me how much that «I was going to love my meal!» Ha! I recommend they get some better food or switch to hypnosis.

I don’t think this should be called Thai food. It’s more like ingredients that are similar to what’s in Thai food, but doesn’t taste quite like Thai food. Or even look like Thai food. Never saw pad siew with skinny yellow noodles before. At least this way you won’t be (as) disappointed if you don’t think it’s Thai food.
Bland noodle dishes, bland papaya salad (with carrots??), no spring rolls available.
Never again. Should’ve went to Wendy’s.

No sauce and undercooked rice! Ordered the Stir-​fry, Karee. There’s hardly any sauce and the white rice has bits of hard grains in it, seems undercooked. Very disappointed. First meal, about 7 months ago was my favorite, but since then all has tasted worse and worse. I’m very unhappy.

This place is a joke.
I ordered food from this location on Seamless web and when it never arrived I called to check on it. THE FOOD WAS NEVER EVEN DELIVERED TO THE KITCHEN TO BE MADE.
Save yourself the agony of ordering from such an establishment.

I came by again for their chicken salad. I don’t know about anything else but their salad is solid– I absolutely love it. Customer service was fantastic and I loved how clean the place was. I’m really not sure why everyone’s hating on this place– and I’m pretty hard to please!
I liked their pad thai which I tried a year ago. I’ll be back for drunken noodles! I hope they stay in business because I’m going to keep coming back for more! Truly is feel good Thai ;)

Muy new favorite Thai lunch place near Grand central! the Décor, music vibe food and oOMG BAEL+LEMONGRASS TEA delish

It was alright. This place isn’t anything too special. Their Thursday $ 10 lunch deal is nice, but all the drinks that they offer are overly sweet in my opinion.

Staff was super friendly and kind. They were all smiles, which was such a nice change from most places in midtown.
However, food not so good. Noodles were way overcooked, and my egg totally burnt. Food almost tasted like they haven’t been cleaning their wok or whatever it is they use. I would NOT order from there again. Maybe their rice and soup dishes are better? Such a shame because presentation is so cute and the environment itself is adorable, clean, and kitschy.
I just can’t afford a $ 9 bad pad thai. On to the next!

*unpacks bag of food*
*discovers there’s no silverware, fantastic*
First bite: Omg this is the most watered down curry I have ever tasted. Sorry this is not even curry, it’s diluted spices.
The taste is nothing close to what red curry is supposed to taste like. The substance is no type of paste. It honestly looks like a Naked Carrot drink mixed with water. There are carrots and looks like squash thrown into the mix. Weird combination and I’ve had a lot of Thai red curry dishes but never this before…
I honestly paid about $ 11 for less than 10 little pieces of bad-​sauced chicken, sticky white rice, and some fountain* iced tea.
That’s right, as appealing as it was for me to sample four teas (which was recommended to me by the manager and completely unhygienic), the teas are barely chilled and not great.
Not to be a whiner but if someone can dump a jar of Trader Joe’s Curry Sauce on some chicken and it would taste 10x better than this. I would be lying if I said I didn’t completely regret giving them a try and wanting my money back.
This spot has 2 stars for a reason. Save yourself the agony and buy some Mexican across the street!

WOW things have changed. Came here today and the Pad See Ew is no longer on the menu :(. I went with the Pad Thai; how bad could that be. Oh my god it was truly horrendous tasting. I gagged on the sauce which tasted strange and like there was something that had gone bad in it. It was also incredibly spicy. I am used to Pad Thai having a little heat, but this was Drunken Noodle spicy.
I don’t think I’ll be coming back to Dee Daa; not with so many other great options around!

I got the grilled chicken Thai salad to go. They couldn’t figure out how to attach the lid to the container so they jerry rigged some scotch tape to hold everything in place. The chicken was falling out of the container by the time I got to my office.
The salad was OK but the chicken was grey for some reason and still had the skin. It was also full of cartilage… I don’t think it was actually grilled.
I’m no expert in Thai food but I think a prerequisite of a good Thai place should be a chef or kitchen staff that at least looks like they are from Thailand… Not the case here.

Three words: dreamy Thai food! Probably one of the best pad see ew plates I ever tasted. It tastes less oily and well prepared. These noodles taste like they will melt in your mouth. The spices balance each other out.
Even though I waited for more than 15 minutes for my order, it was worth the wait.
I love the décor! It gives the place a more authentic Thai feel. I find the bulletin board fun and entertaining. Every few seconds it changes and gives you tibits of the Thai culture. It makes waiting more enjoyable.
The take out plates and utensils come from recycled material. So not only does this place serve better food, but is environmentally conscious! Love that!
Located near Third ave, the aroma catches your attention. A small place, it presents a more intimate eating experience. It looks clean and the customers have easy access to the napkins and utensils.
I highly recommend this place to everyone.

Well, the décor is nice. I just wish I could say more about everything else.
When I came in, I noticed that the floor was sticky. Not a good sign, but I also noticed the penang chicken and got a hankering for it, so I decided to stay.
The place was not crowded, but the service was slow. When the food finally came, I sat down and ate it there. The tables and seats were nice.
I have to admit that while I had much better, the penang sauce was not bad. I wish it had a bit more spice to it though. It mixed well with the brown rice.
The chicken was rubbery, and didn’t mix well with the curry. They must have just thrown the sauce on top of the chicken. At least it tasted that way.
I’m tempted to give only one star, but I did like the sauce with the rice. No, that’s not a ringing endorsement, and I have no intention of stopping here again. There are much better, and more authentic, Thai places in NYC.

Awful awful awful. Don’t come here and waste your money. Seriously. We stumbled across this place when we were looking to find a quick place to eat near our office. I was so excited to find a Thai place close to the office which caters to a GF lifestyle. Unfortunately, I forgot to check Unilocal before I came here and it was such a big mistake. This place has 2 stars on Unilocal for good reason, not only are they slow and don’t know what’s in the food. The food is awful — and it was so bad that I ended up throwing our entire dinner.
Avoid this place like the plague, really.