Tik's Thai Express Llc - Fairborn

Hidden gem. It was really good. Meal type: Dinner Price per person: $50–100 Food: 5 Service: 5 Atmosphere: 5 Recommended dishes: Pad Thai, Crab Rangoon, Bourbon Chicken with Fried Rice, Rolls

Awesome thai taste Service: Dine in Meal type: Lunch Price per person: $50–100 Food: 5 Service: 5 Atmosphere: 5 Recommended dishes: Vegetable Spring Roll, Drunken Noodles, Crab Fried Rice Parking space: Plenty of parking Parking options: Free street parking

I was almost immediately disappointed by the menu as they didn't have a lot of the typical Thai staples and classics in most restaurants, especially those sponsored by the Thai government. It was evident that it is definitely catering more to non-Thai and mid-Western tastes and I doubt the owner is Thai. We ordered tod mun pla (fish cakes, not pictured), chicken pad Thai, and larb gai (ground meat salad, chicken is the only option here). -Tod mun pla: Can't complain too much. They were smaller than I'm used to and not quite as flavorful, but overall not bad. Very expensive for what they were though. -Pad Thai: Typical authentic pad Thai sauces don't contain soy sauce and this tasted way more like a soy sauce stir-fried noodle than pad Thai. I'd struggle to really call it pad Thai as the flavors just are not pad Thai. I don't know if any tamarind was used, but there was no real tang to it. Pad Thai should be sweet, sour, and salty but this just had a salty soy sauce flavor. It wasn't terrible, but it wasn't pad Thai. -Larb gai: Not really too much to complain about here concerning flavor. It was pretty standard larb and they used toasted rice powder like it's supposed to have. I do wish they would have used fresh chilis instead of dry and shallots instead of red onions. What I will complain about is the price and amount of meat. $18 for larb is outrageous, especially when the amount of meat was so small. I wouldn't normally pay more than $10 for larb and it normally is loaded with your ground meat of choice. My family is from Isaan region where we mostly eat sticky rice by hand with larb. Larb is a traditional Isaan dish and most Isaan cuisine is eaten by hand with sticky rice, so the fact that they don't serve sticky rice as an option was really disappointing. The only sticky rice is for the mango sticky rice dessert. You also typically eat it with lettuce or cabbage, similar to lettuce wraps. They had it in the dish, but it was all chopped up and mixed in with the meat so you really couldn't use it to grab or fill it with any meat. Overall, very disappointing for me but my non-Thai spouse didn't mind it. It's really expensive (around $15 average for entrees) for what you get.

Wonderful food-good selection. Great service and plenty of seating. Crab Fried Rice and Love's Vegetables. Service: Dine in Meal type: Dinner Price per person: $10–20 Food: 5 Service: 5 Atmosphere: 5 Recommended dishes: Crab Fried Rice

Delicious Food and excellent service. Food: 5 Service: 5 Atmosphere: 5