Oxford Thai

We open on Christmas Day and Boxing Day. Try our famous fish cakes, chicken satay and sweet corn cakes all in one. Happy Christmas!

Jing of Oxford Thai (Unverified), 16/11/11

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The place was cheerful, had a great chicken satay and thai fishcakes - excellent! Try to avoid busy time cause they cook freshly each dish, mine took long time but worth the wait.

Sam (Unverified), 10/08/11

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Have eaten in and ordered take away from the Oxford Thai on many occaisions, but will not be doing either again. Ordered a home delivery last night and to say we were disappointed was an understatement. All the dishes we ordered we have eaten before from this restaurant, yet none of them, bar one, resembled food we had eaten before. Duck spring rolls which used to be a large triangle of crispy pancake stuffed full of juicy duck, are now soggy cut up pieces of spring roll. The lamb masaman curry, whilst the lamb itself being ok, the sauce resembled nothing like the masaman we have had before, and frankly left a taste in the mouth that refused to go away - it just tasted wrong. The only redeemable features of our meal were the vegetable spring rolls and the rice. Not much of a meal though, albeit an expensive one for what was edible. Oh and did I mention we had to wait 2 hours for it to arrive. Never again.

Disappointed (Unverified), 18/07/11

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Very disappointed with Oxford Thai home delivery. Ordered food quite late so not even a busy time, they said it would be 40 minutes but took an hour.

When it arrived the sticky rice portion was cold, and barely enough for one person, and they forgot one of the dishes! Called and they said it would arrive very soon but took 40 minutes. By which point our meal was ruined and all we got was a small bag of prawn crackers to apologise.

On the plus side curry was nice just very put out by the poor delivery service.

Hungry (Unverified), 09/07/11

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Dear Flower,
Thank you very much for your comments. We are so sorry that we are disappointed you and your friends the first time you visited our restaurant.
We will find out what the mistake happended on our Pad Thai and we will make sure that it will not happen again.
Regards,

The Owner (Unverified), 08/05/11

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The good reviews were the reason a group of us went. What a mistake. I can only say that Tesco Stir Fry is tastier than the Pad Thai I ordered. My friends did not fare better.

Then we learnt the restaurant was 'Under New Managment'. Perhaps it was just a glitch? Not going back to find out!

Flower (Unverified), 15/04/11

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..will be offering set lunch from 1300 til 1600, set dinner from 1730 till 2230 on Christmas and Boxing Day :)

jing (Unverified), 14/12/10

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Now has live music at every Friday from 9pm (harp or piano player).

nis (Unverified), 02/10/10

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We have been looking for really good Thai food since moving to Oxford a couple of years back, but had yet to find anything up to the very best standards. Well we need look no more: this place is seriously good! The papaya salad was to die for: seriously juicy, just the right amount of lemongrass and citrus. The green and panang curries were equally impressive. And incredibly good value for money. Highly recommended!

David (DI User), 22/05/10

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Went there for the set lunch today. Excellent value and pleased to see we could have vegetarian versions of everything with bean curd even though not specified on the set lunch menu. Beautiful decor including Christmas decorations and a large part of a tree hung up on the ceiling. Certainly made the place feel warm on a cold winter's day. After the set meal we shared sticky rice with banana. Again very warming. Also recommend the lemon grass tea. Will definitely return.

06/12/09

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We were here last Saturday. The food was great and the service was fast but friendly even though they were so busy. There was a birthday party and suddenly the lights went off and everyone started to sing Happy Birthday. It was a surprise and everyone sang along! The food was lovely, I had lemongrass salad, it was so good I wanted more. My boyfriend had stuffed chicken wings. For the main, we had stewed beef Masamman curry, oh you must try this... it melted in the mouth and the curry was so creamy (best curry for me ever), and the Pad Thai was delicious - always the best noodle dish here anyway. I will go back again... 5 stars! *****

20/10/09

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My boyfriend and I had dinner at the Oxford Thai last night - it had some good points and some definite lows. It was busy, which is always a good sign, but a little too crammed for comfort. For starters, the chicken satay was very good, but the steamed dumplings weren't great. My boyfriend's Thai red curry was good, had nice prawns and was very spicy. My stir-fried beef with chilli and Thai basil was not up to standard at all. The beef was very very tough, I could not taste any Thai basil nor much fresh chilli. Our rice portions were generous, but were dried out and hard, not fluffy. The portions are also quite small, though the prices are low. As a local neighbourhood restaurant, I think this place would be great for a warming Thai curry on a rainy Thursday night on the way home from work, but for a Saturday night out, it's not up to scratch.

11/10/09

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Had a very disappointing lunch on Saturday. We ordered the chicken with cashew nuts and the chicken with basil and chili. Both dishes were completely overpowered by the too liberal use of pepper. Coke was poured right out of a PET bottle, which clearly had not been capped tight enough resulting in a very flat beverage.

Psotheyyd (Unverified), 13/09/09

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The new owners have done what they've promised. My husband and I were en route to another Cowley Road noodle bar when we were attracted by the warm-looking decor of a very full Oxford Thai last night. The steaming, colourful, and delicious looking plates of food being passed to the customers by the window utterly distracted me from my menu-reading and price-adding and we decided we would have to give it a try. We each ordered a thai beer from the friendly waitress and decided to share starters - Tom Yum Goong soup (one of my all-time favourites) and the papaya salad.

Both were delicious, fresh, and beautifully presented. The soup was in a small bowl but I kept on uncovering king prawns and mushrooms, which was a great surprise. I have to say that at this point (after living in SE Asia and looking for authentic Thai food here and in the US) I've become somewhat of a connoisseur of papaya salad. Oxford Thai's version is up there with the very best, and had a lovely surprise - the tiny slivers of lemon rind were completely edible, bursting with citrus.

Off to a good start, I thought I'd have a go at some classics - I had the green curry (served in a black clay bowl), and he had the House Pad Thai. Both were incredibly amazing - the generous slices of chicken breast were marinaded in coconut until juicy and tender in my curry (which my husband kept pinching!) and there was definitely more than enough rice. The sauce was thick and spicy. Likewise, the pad thai was perfectly flavoured, not too sweet, just the right amount of spice, and the crushed, dry-roasted peanuts were off to the side as to not overpower things.

The tab was just about as much as we would have spent at the (not as nice) noodle bar, and the whole experience felt like fine dining, but in a friendly and casual atmosphere. Highly recommended.

Omnomnom (Unverified), 10/05/09

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Hello Ladies and Gentlemen,

The Oxford Thai is just about to change for the better, and thank you for your feedback. As a new owner, we will try our best to improve the look and the quality of the food for our customers. You will slowly see the changes coming by April-May 2009 time. I appreciate your view on us. Hope to see you all again soon...

Lisa, New owner (Unverified), 26/02/09

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Over the last 2 years I have eaten at the Oxford Thai most months. This started out as a great little restaurant find, with basic, great food - a little bit repetitive in its menu and planning, service ok ish and prices that were good to ok, but overall positive. Then it all started to go downhill - on three separate occasions, the food was poor (and once not good at all) - was it me? Had I eaten there once too often?! Or had the cook changed, or lost interest? Still, all good things go round and round - perhaps it might get better again (soon I hope!) - proof will be in the number of people who are inside eating. Yes, I am a chef, and love good food and cheap prices - and this place had it all! So where has it gone?? Please come back soon - then so will we!  :)

Chef henri (Unverified), 15/10/08

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Living in the Cowley Road area, Oxford Thai was one of the first places we tried for delivery, and we've gone back again and again. Their pad thai is excellent, in my opinion, and we have never been let down by their starters or other dishes. I am quite surprised at the negative reviews on this site, as I have eaten there a number of times, and have always left pleased and full.

CB, Cowley (Unverified), 09/06/08

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Always had pretty reasonable food at the Oxford Thai, however last night felt too tired to venture out and ordered a home delivery...

Red Thai curry without coconut milk, all watery... not nice at all. The other dishes were mediocre to say the least, sadly our last outing with the Oxford Thai for a long, long time.

Bex (DI User), 30/09/07

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We went to Oxford Thai last year, having recently moved from North London where there are Thai restaurants and cafés everywhere, and Thai food available in pubs, all amazing quality at cheap prices. We were craving Thai food, and having heard that this place was okay we went along - which was a bit of a mistake.

The prices were more expensive than London, but I expected that as they have virtually no competition in their price range; but what I did not expect was to find the food so watered down and tasteless - just like a very standard chinese takeaway, basically. Our starters were okay; we had fishcakes and pork dumplings, which weren't actively bad, but my main of chicken green curry was tasteless and the portion was very small. My husband's dish was slightly less disappointing, but still a bit not-very-good-chinese-takeaway.

Considering that in my local pub in Hackney you could get delicious freshly cooked Thai dishes (my favourite being the sea bass with lemon grass, coriander and chilli), including rice, for £4.50 to £7, not stinting on spices, nothing made from a packet, and all cooked in the pub kitchen by two Thai women, that Oxford is a cosmopolitan place, and that this restaurant is situated on the Cowley Road, I have no idea how they can get away with charging such high prices!

The very sad thing is that they do, but personally, I am never going there again.

Ruth (Unverified), 12/09/07

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Dinner at Oxford Thai

Food: Starter: Dumplings, Main: Tofu with Mixed Vegetables. Dumplings were probably not hand made but store bought and steamed. Tofu and Mixed Vegetables - good flavour, good variety of veg. Portion size was good, but perhaps a tiny bit small for dinner... I was comfortably full however (I wasn't that hungry to begin with!). For hungry eaters at dinner time the portions would be considered small.

Environment/atmosphere: Relaxed. Basic.

Price: £13 for starter and dinner (not including drinks) - reasonable for dinner.

Staff: did not know the menu properly; they would bring dishes down and not know what the dish was called! Did not properly understand when I asked for no MSG in my food.

All in all: would go back but not for dinner - I consider it more of a lunch place.

VW (Unverified), 06/03/07

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I ate here a few months ago and was not that crazy about it. The starters, which were a mixed platter, were fine, but our mains were sort of a disappointment. My husband's dish arrived with cashews in it despite the menu not mentioning nuts, which he's allergic to, and my main wasn't remotely what I had ordered. So we swapped dishes and made do but neither were that great or very spicy. Also I was disappointed that they didn't have any wide rice noodle dishes which I have found at every other Thai restaurant I've been to. Although the atmosphere and decor were very nice I wouldn't go back.

Lin Mei (Unverified), 21/02/07

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What great place to eat. I went there with my boyfriend and 2 friends. The drinks came quick as did the food which was fresh and really tasty.  I actually felt quite healthy after my dinner of beef with pineapple and honey, spring onions, green and red peppers.

The people there are very friendly and make you feel like nothing is a trouble. Even better when we received the bill it came to £46 for the 4 of us - that included two starters, four mains and a round and a half of beers.

I will definitely go there again and I recommend it to everyone.

katie (DI User), 16/02/07

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Nice restaurant- the food was delicious (I tried the Pad Thai). Prices are very reasonable and the service was excellent.
Cheers!

Ines (Unverified), 19/10/06

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For those of us living in the centre of town, the decision to traverse Magdalen Bridge is not taken lightly - the Cowley Road often seeming quite an interminable distance away. This is simply not the case though, and given the excellent range of restaurants and Bars lurking on the other side, the extra walking is easily justified. Oxford Thai is a case in point. Near Tesco Metro (and cashpoints - which is good as this restaurant doesn't accept plastic), it serves up a wide variety of tasty, and more to the point perhaps, ridiculously cheap dishes. Seriously, £5.50 for a very filling dish of vegetables, the meat of your choice and rice or noodles, cannot be complained at! Better still, House wine starts at £6 - £6! Yes. When I visited, I was clearly feeling a bit flash, as I actually passed on the six pounder and went for the next one up - a well recognised brand name wine for a very pleasing £7.

I've been to Oxford Thai a couple of times now; firstly with a girls' drinking society, during which the relaxed atmosphere and no frills paper tablecloths were a positive bonus, and secondly with my boyfriend where ditto, we felt for a cheap, filling supper we hadn't gone far wrong. I would particularly recommend the noodle dishes, of which there aren't many but which are very good indeed. Similarly, the mixed starter plate for two is excellent, consisting of king prawns and a selection of tempura vegetables, accompanied by a couple of dips including an excellent sate.

My one criticism is perhaps that, despite the long menu, all the dishes seem a little 'samey' in terms of flavour. However, given the price I don't think this is too much of a problem, particularly as the ingredients (especially the vegetables) seem of a very good quality. Service is also swift and efficient, occasionally to the point where you feel a little guilty for lingering for any longer than absolutely necessary, but this is probably just a product of this little restaurant's increasing popularity.

All in all, a very good bet indeed for some (very) informal and tasty nosh.

Victoria Lorne (Unverified), 03/11/03

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