Restaurant Review: Amarin Thai

Amarin Thai - lunch on August 22, 2013

Amarin Thai has three locations in the South Bay and the peninsula and, fortunately for me, one of those is within walking distance of my office.  I went here for lunch with a coworker when we both had time between meetings for the 10-minute walk. I prefer to walk here as they're in a small strip mall and parking is dicey during the busy lunch rush as they have to share the spots with other small eateries.  Walking is better.

This particular location is pretty humble as it's essentially a small room crowded with as many tables as they can fit in there.  I don't advise coming here with more than 4 people in your party as their largest tables only appear to fit four.  You can put tables together, of course, but seriously, this place is small.  The interior shot above was taken from the doorway and there are only 3-4 small tables to the left  that aren't in the picture.  Otherwise, there are also a few 2- or 4-top tables outside which can be utilized in good weather.

Like all places that cater to the business crowd at lunch, Amarin Thai has a lunch special menu along with their regular menu and they serve your order within a few minutes.  The longest I might have ever waited for an order was 7-8 minutes.  Each order comes with a cup of soup: a clear, spicy broth with chopped vegetables.  I almost always get the pad thai (of course), no bean sprouts with chicken and shrimp.  I'm a big fan of pad thai and Amarin Thai serves a good one.  Not quite as good as the one from my favorite Thai place (Krung Thai) but still decent.  It isn't fancy but if you want a quick lunch for $10, it's a good place to go.