I had always been curious to try this restaurant and the opportunity came when a group of friends wanted to try the AYCE there. I was excited to try AYCE Thai, which is rare in Vancouver.

We had made reservations but we had extra people. The manager told us to wait in the corner without providing a reason. It was not a problem at first for us to wait as our entire party had not arrived. About 10 minutes later, I talked to another waitress to ask to be seated since most of us were there. She finally seated us and told us that they do not normally provide seats unless the entire party had arrived. This did not seem reasonable as the restaurant was mostly empty.

Next, we ordered our food from the menu. There is a list of rules that you must abide to in order to participate in the AYCE. Some of them include: 1) everyone at the table must be doing AYCE; 2) if you don't complete your dish, you will be charged $4; 3) 15% service charge is added to your bill; 4) maximum 1.5 hr for the buffet; 5) maximum 5 items per round of order. The unwritten rule is that you cannot order prior to every one in your party being there. This is something that the waitress mentioned. Why could we not have been seated earlier? We would have just not ordered until everyone got there.

The waitress was friendly and allowed us to order more than the maximum 5 items listed in the rules. The manager, however, is the one who made the meal unpleasant. You can feel the manager staring at you/your party while you eat. I am guessing that he is assessing how much each party is ordering in order to gauge his net profit/loss. On some occasions, I saw him talking to the waitresses and looking at our party. He is possibly talking to them about his strategy on how much and when to serve the food.

Closer to the end of the meal, the dishes that we ordered arrived at a slower pace. We thought that it could be because they were trying to keep us waiting so that we would order less. One girl in the party noted that they were enthusiastic to clear our plates away. Furthermore, the bill arrived without any of us calling for the bill. This seemed like a gesture to get us to leave. Again, the restaurant was not busy at the time!

The food was basic Thai food. Do not expect anything special. The restaurant is in a nice location because it is near the water.

I think that Chilli House Thai Bistro has a lot of potential to engage a lot of customers with the AYCE because AYCE Thai in Vancouver is rare. However, with the scowling of the manager as you eat and his attitude towards his staff, the potential is lost. The waitresses were very nice but the manager was micromanaging them the entire time.

I would advise that there be a management change of some sort in order to maintain/engage more customers.

So I saw an internet advertisement announcing all you can eat buffet dinner $16. Great, I was sold and willing to make the trek from Surrey to Downtown on a Friday night. My friend and I were totally excited to try out the 29 dishes that they boasted.

We could not find the restaurant and drove up and down Beach Ave. trying to find the place just to find a sign hidden behind a pole, that pointed toward an dark alley, then another sign pointed to a underground parking garage. Free parking!!! yay!!! Off to a good start we thought.

We arrived at the restaurant, to our amazement we had a harbour view and could see Granville Island. the restaurant seemed modern and trendy.... many Thai Theme like decorations, it was clean, neat and tidy.

The hostess greeted us with their traditional Thai greeting, and seated us quickly. To my disappointment there was no buffet and the restaurant was not busy perhaps 5 other tables were full. I realized that you needed to order off the menu and when I looked over the menu and in small fine print, it stated that you could order 5 items at a time, 1.5hr seating time, 15% gratuity and tax would already be added to the bill etc. Add $3 for bottomless pop. The dishes they had were mediocre. Typical thai appies, 3 different type rice noodle dishes, 3 different curries and some stirfries so on.

When they meant 5 items they sure meant 5 items!! that mean ordering 1 skewer of chicken, 1 spring roll, 1 calamari ring, 1 chicken wing, 1 piece of deep fried tofu per person. Then when you are done you could order more. Which we did, we ordered our main courses the typical pad thai, fried rice and green curry etc. the food took forever but they were gracious enough to refill our pop and water fast.

When the food arrived they were greasy and very salty (my suspicion is that they want to get you thirsty to drink more pop and get full faster and also the wait time for the food). Everything tasted the same but with some different slight variation. The portions were small and they missed a few things we had ordered. They had at least 5 waitresses on staff and we were served by different waitresses every time we needed service.

When we wanted to order more food, the guy said he would come back, went to the mgr. pointed at us and then never came back. Another waitress came to take our order, but she was condescending and warned us that if we had already ordered we were not going to get any more food. Without asking for the bill they gave us the bill and was pretty much pushing us out the door... our total bill for two people was pretty much $50. For that much I would rather order off the menu and another place.

Food: additional items were ordered but I tried the Tom Yum Talay (seafood hot & spicy soup), Som Tum Malagor (green papaya strip salad), and Yum Team Gai (chicken feet with lime juice). All three were excessively salted and therefore masked whatever Thai spices were used. Better items included the ostrich satay (tender, flavorful) as well as the ostrich lettuce wrap; in fact, having healthy ostrich on the menu was the saving grace for the menu.

Service: efficient, quick, but nothing special. They did change plates and bowls midway through our meal.

Value: $25 per person for a group of 6 after $15 off from the Entertainment coupon. I had to ask for the receipt back as they did not specifically put the 18% group service charge on the bill and I had to double check so as to not tip again.

Ambiance: It's understood that you pay a little premium for the view of the marina so no problems there.

Food: Calamari was disappointing - very chewy and tough to eat and came with a bland sauce. Chicken with cashews and mangos was a delight as well as the pad thai. Couldn't try much else since I was only dining with one other.

Service: Seated immediately and people were friendly enough but it seemed as though the service dropped off once they found out we weren't ordering anything expensive. They brought us our bill without us asking for it and didn't bother to ask if we wanted anything else when I did have a hankering for mango ice cream - oh well, their loss. Water was refilled frequently and without asking.

Value: Our meal with tip came to 42 which isn't bad but also isn't great either. I would come again but be more wary of what I ordered. Portion sizes weren't large - more on the smaller side so be prepared to dole out more cash if you're a big eater.

Ambiance: it was a great patio... until people just kept walking right through and seating themselves or just entering the restaurant through the patio! Became quite irritating and there really needs to be a gate or a sign of some sort to prevent that from happening. Views of False Creek are semi-blocked by cement blocks in the front.

Overall, I'm not quite sure if I'll ever come back to this location. The two dishes we had were great and the view on a nice day is quite nice but we felt hurried and the calamari was not a great start. I guess if I were in the area, I wouldn't mind coming back.

Went here with 6 of my friends. Only complaint I have is their waiters and waitresses are not nice. Service is not that great. We all had all you can eat, but a limit 5 dishes per order for a group of people is not great. Even though we still had food coming they kept coming around saying are you done or what.

As part of the Thai House family, this location offers up a little something different than the rest of the chain. I was surprised to see a 'tapas' section in their menu.
Surprisingly, based on their location, the prices are pretty much the same as any of the other locations. But also because of their location, reservations should really be considered.

The first time coming here, I thought the food wasn't very good. Much time has passed and I gave them another shot. I ordered my fav thai dish - pad see iw, a noodle dish. Unfortunately, this version was the worst I've had yet. The noodle is supposed to be the same kind as the pad thai noodle. This one was just oily flat rice noodle. Also, there wasn't much taste to it - I can only describe it as bland, but slightly sweet and mushy. However, I have to give them thumbs up for the plenty pieces of chicken it came with.

Ambiance is very nice, especially if you get a seat on their famous patio. The wierdest thing I found in the inside, was the "live seafood tank" right smack in the middle of the dining room. I thought it was the strangest place to put this tiny unattractive old and worn-out simple fish tank topped with a lamp. It was a real eye-sore and they would be better off not even showing it.

So I had mixed feelings about this place. The food hasn't improved (to me), but it's still a great location serving up very affordable food. Maybe I should give them one more shot and try their tapas menu.

Went to Chilli House for a birthday dinner, had the set menu for a party of 8, which included a lettuce wrap with beef, charcoal bbq chicken with chilli sauce ~this chicken was soooooOOO good, the meat was perfectly cooked and the flavour was really rich, you have to try it wit lots of that chilli sauce! A choice of curry with meat in a coconut shell, we ended up witih curry beef, Thai escargots, these are fresh and big escargots not the mini ones you normally eat, if you've never tried it its worth a try. Then we had one of my all time favorites~ fried rice with chicken in a pineapple! There was a salad I forgot to mention earlier, it was light with dressing and came with beef and shrimp on it, very refreshing with a squeeze of lemon juice. The classic pad thai noodle with scrambled eggs and shrimp, peanut bits and bean sprounts, stir fried with chilli paste was another one of my favorites. All this came with a big pot of coconut flavored Jasmine rice. We also ordered a Tilapia stewed in hot and sour soup in the middle of dinner, this soup is amazing! Theres a hint of spices that goes really well with the fish, you add vegetables and vermicelli noodles in the hot soup and mix it, let it cook for a bit and then serve. Another add on to our set menu was the braised lamb, which was very flavorful, thick and buttery. For dessert, we all had the jackfruit with sticky rice and the deep fried banana with coconut ice cream. Chilli house has a nice view along the waters, the music they play is very relaxing, they have a gold Buddhist statue in the front entrance, some palm trees around the front and a fish tank inside as decors. Very nicely done! Great food, highly recommended!

This is best Thai place i think. Because it has great view and good traditional thai food. Price is ok and hard to find which make it better since it make it quiet. People serving are ok, not over friendly tho. You can see boats and right at the waterfront of the False creek.

This is a great place. It was a sunny day when we went, and it appeared that many people stopped in after an afternoon of rollerblading or cycling along the waterfront. I think I will keep that great idea mind the next time I am out cycling. The location on the water is very nice and gives the whole place a very laid back atmosphere.

The servers are very attentive and come around often to see how you are doing, refill water etc. The food was likewise efficient, without too much waiting.

The curry we ordered had plenty of curry and had just the right mix of hotness and sweetness. We also ordered a fried rice dish served in a half coconut. It was delicious with plenty of seafood mixed in. All in all, it was a good meal; we will return and recommend it to others.

The location here is great, but I do feel that it is not suited for a Chili House Thai Bistro. We ordered Calarmari rings for appetizer, Seafood Green Curry wrapped in foil, and Stir-Fry Duck with Thai Spices, along with a litre of their house red. The wine list is mediocre, nothing special at all, and their 2 House wines are: Santa Isabella, and Jackson Triggs. I think these are very bad house wines, but I still went ahead and orderd the Santa Isabella, but when the server brought it over, she had given us white, whereas I had ordered red. The calamari appetizer is very very poor, not tender, and very greasy; it was served with mayo for dipping ... Next we got the duck, which was incredibly salty, so salty we couldn't really eat it without mounds of rice. The server did offer to take it back, but we declined. The green curry is decent, but I feel that the taste is nothing too unique, it is comparable to countless other mediocre thai establishments. To add to this, we thought that the term "foil" in the name seemed different, so we tried that, but all it is, is green curry sitting on a sheet of aluminum foil ... Oo well, the before dinner and after dinner stroll along the sea wall/sunset beach was enjoyable.