Daniel B.
Yelp
We were disappointed in the service at Rain. First, they served shrimp with my massaman curry when both my fiancee and I clearly told the server that I'm allergic to shrimp. They also forgot one piece of sushi and the wasabi in my Sushi & Massaman combo. Then, when we were close to finishing our meals, I noticed they gave special Thai menus to Thai customers at adjacent tables. When I asked about the special menu, a server told me they don't give those menus to "Chinese and Americans because they don't like it." What?
I asked to see the menu and it had some interesting and unique dishes. I told the server I would've ordered off the special menu had I known about it. She apologized. Instead, we got "stuck" with the restaurant's standard Thai and sushi fare. Generally, I've never been too impressed with Thai and sushi restaurants. The food is typically average and run-of-the-mill; I'd include Rain in that category. Had I tried the special Thai menu, my opinion of this place could be completely different.
FYI, the special Thai menu ("Rain Saturday") is served during Saturday lunch only, so take advantage of it if you can. The menu is written in both Thai and English. Most dishes cost only about $8-9 each. After seeing the menu, I remembered one of my Thai friends telling me about it; I'd just forgotten. Thaicoon on Briarcliff used to do (maybe still does) the same thing on Saturday. https://www.yelp.com/biz/thaicoon-and-sushi-bar-atlanta
If I ran this place, I'd hand out both the regular and special menus to every customer regardless of race, ethnicity, etc. Who knows? Maybe Rain would become more popular and make more money selling their "secret menu" items. The funny thing is I'm Chinese-Thai-American. I have a Thai last name and I understand Thai, but they still didn't give me a Thai menu (to be "fair," I don't look Thai and when I go to Thailand, most Thai people see me as Chinese). Regardless, who cares if a customer is Thai? Just give everyone both menus and let them decide what they want to order.
The standard menu is sizable with a large selection of both Thai cuisine and sushi. The lunch menu, where all items are under $10 each, is honored seven days a week. At dinnertime, expect to spend anywhere from about $12-25 per Thai entree. As for sushi, in line with most other "Thai and sushi" restaurants, colorful, Americanized rolls packed with all sorts of ingredients are the specialty ($10-13 each for most rolls) with a basic selection of nigiri and sashimi.
Here's what we had:
* Sushi & Massaman ($11.95) - 4 pieces of California roll, 4 pieces of sushi, and massaman curry with chicken and shrimp
* Sushi & Pad Thai ($11.95) - 4 pieces of California roll, 3 pieces of sushi, and pad Thai with chicken and shrimp
* Thai tea ($2.49)
* Special Thai iced dessert ($5.00) made with coconut milk, jackfruit, sweet red water chestnuts, and tapioca jellies
The Sushi & Massaman and Sushi & Pad Thai combos came from the lunch menu. They're served in bento boxes. As mentioned above, they served me shrimp in my massaman curry when I told them I was allergic. The server confirmed he understood yet the massaman curry still came with shrimp. The pieces of "sushi" above refer to nigiri. The Sushi & Massaman is supposed to come with 4 pieces, but mine only came with 3. The pieces were salmon, tuna, and yellowtail. The same 3 types were served with the Sushi & Pad Thai combo too. Wasabi came with the Sushi & Pad Thai combo, but not in the Sushi & Massaman combo. Both came with pickled ginger. Finally, the Sushi & Pad Thai combo came with a salad while the Sushi & Massaman combo came with white rice.
After the issues were sorted out, I thought the bento boxes tasted fine. My fiancee liked them both. The only thing we didn't like was the salad that came with the Sushi & Pad Thai. It contained cucumber, carrots, orange, and imitation crab with some sort of light dressing. The combination tasted weird/strange. It wasn't very good. We took a few bites and left it. The quality of the California rolls and nigiri was satisfactory; not bad, not great. The best-tasting item was the pad Thai followed by the massaman curry, though the portion size of the curry was skimpy and the pieces of chicken were a bit tough and dry. One thing I liked about the curry was there was fresh, ripe, sliced avocado on top. I thought that was a nice and generous touch.
The other items fared better. We got coconut chicken soup with our lunches and the soup was delicious. The Thai tea was tasty too (recommended). The special Thai iced dessert was the best thing we had. It was really good and is hard to find elsewhere in Atlanta (Thai Pad and Coco Sweets in Duluth used to sell this stuff, but they closed). I liken it to a dessert "soup" with crushed ice and yummy soft toppings. It's sweet, but not too sweet.
Customer service was lacking. Our first server gave zero Fs. Another customer and I had to get up and flag someone down just to get service.