bai tong thai restaurant

off late we have been eating a lot of thaifood.. our friends crave for indian taste and tend to incline towards thai as there are not a lot of indian options in spokane, btw this is also where i live :)

when the idea of having thaifoodcame from one of our friends, while we were on our "indian" trip to seattle (i say indian as the trips are mostly to stack up on indian staples and eat indian street food), me and missus .. we both were a bit repulsive.
but then since our friends literally live in seattle, indianfoodis a bit too often for them .. so we went along.

as soon as we reached .. the first thing i did (obviously after the check in :p) was to search the meaning of bai tong .. and just for us all .. it means banana leaf in thai. b-)
the place is huge .. ample of seating and a bar as well. given the place, the prices are great. i couldn't have guessed without seeing the menu .. never could have.
service is professional and prompt.

the dishes we ordered were

chicken panang curry - it was a bit too sweet for me .. i don't know .. it should have been spicy sweet .. but was like sweet with some spice .. but friends liked it .. and it was their order .. so well .. it was good. :)

mixed veggies with chicken - the chicken was a bit dry, a few pieces .. but overall this dish was good. a simple dish but worth it.

the star, however, was yellow curry fried rice (no meat) .. the amalgamation of the indian yellow curry and the rice with pineapple, cashews and onions was somehow indian and thai mixed .. the great part was that it was not sweet .. just spicy ..
i highly recommend this dish .. highly.

all in all, not bad for our first time experience here .. no wonder the ms employees are stuffing it up for lunch, everyday.

my first tryst with thaifoodand i must admit i'm a fan.. loved the red thai curry and the fried chicken... definitely a great place to go with family or friends.. double thumbs up to the staff as well 👍👍

we had a bit of a wait on a weekday evening, but it turns out it was well worth it.  our server helped us through the menu, but with a picture menu to help you along, you won't go too far wrong.  we had some spring rolls and some sort of leaf-wrapped chicken for an appetizer.  nothing wrong with either, but i wouldn't likely order the chicken again.  our entrees were all wonderful.  we were seated in a sultan's tent-like booth, which was nice enough, but the restaurant decor and layout itself was average overall.  i found thefoodto be fresh and well above average in taste and quality of ingredients.  portion size was generous but not over-sized.  no complaints.  great food.  great service.  reasonable prices.

mixed results for the new issaquah location. have eaten inside bai tong in issaquah twice, and ordered takeout from there once, here is my advice: although the atmosphere is nice and thefoodtasted good, they bungled my order both times we ate in. even though i had ordered 1 star they made it 3-4 star and i couldn't eat it, and had to send it back. we eat a lot of thaifoodand have been to many places and i would say theirfoodis not really "authentic" but rather your typical american thai place. i would not recommend anyone ordering takeout from them as the one time we did this, it was horrible. the pad thai was dry and sticky with very little sauce, and was the worst i've ever had anywhere. so, even though i gave them a thumbs down, i believe it could be turned into a thumbs up if they just give a little more training to their employees (especially the cooks)! also, the service was slower than it should have been, given that the place was not full.

lovely food, service could use work. we had a late lunch on a saturday. we were told a 10 minute wait for a table although it was more like 15-20. we waited a long time to be asked for our order - and no "be right with you" or "sorry about the delay" while we were waiting.

we both ordered tea, one appetizer to share and two entrees plus pad thai. after another 10-15 minutes without even the tea, my husband went to ask at the hostess desk. not long after thefoodappeared (he hadn't asked about that) - no appetizer and no tea.

about 5 minutes later the waitress reappeared to ask if everything was ok and my husband said it wasn't - no tea and no appetizer. at that point we no longer needed the appetizer as we were well into our entrees, and to be fair she said she wouldn't charge us for the tea as it was her mistake. it appeared to me that other tables with other wait staff were not gettingfoodany faster - but even if it was the kitchen's fault, someone could have said something and brought us our tea!

thefoodwas delicious. the kana moo krob had great flavor and the vegetables were crispy tender. the spicy eggplants were cut in rather larger pieces than i'd have preferred, but again had great flavors. i loved the pad thai - great tamarind flavor and enough sauce to be moist without being soggy. my husband liked it but wasn't as big a fan as i was.

a little more attention to detail, especially on the service, and this could be an outstanding restaurant. we'll probably give it another try to see if this was an aberration

never disappointing! thefoodis great and the service is amazing! favorite thai place in the northwest!