chantanee thai restaurant

goodfoodbit the service was a bit confused. ourfoodwas delivered to the table next to us. it took quite a while ro get it all figured out

my favorite local place. thefoodhas always been consistent, prices reasonable, and hearty portions. my favorite dishes are the ginger vegetable and swimming rama. a place i will be coming back to often.

excellent thai experience. this jewel, on main st, bothell, offers first rate thaifoodand is a good choice both for lunch and dinner. highly recommended. nice ambience. suitable for a dinner date.

pen thai (thai/south east asian). i expected seattle, the unofficial capital of thai cuisine in the u.s., to have a better standard for excellence than pen thai. during my time in the city, i heard story after story about this great little thai restaurant up a bit north in bothell. convinced excellence awaited me, i made the drive. what a mistake. pen thai quickly became one of the worst thai restaurants i'd ever tried. overcooked, poorly prepared shrimp, underseasoned curries, and tough noodles reigned over a lackluster, expensive meal. even the thai iced tea, something most can craft at home, was completely wrong; wrong tea, wrong milk, $5. when you can find better thaifoodon the side of the road in east los angeles, you know a place is bad.

rating: 4.2/10

i always get their tom yum soup with a side of white rice and then i mix the two together. it's my favourite here!! my allergies really do limit my choice offoodhere but the service is so kind and always willing to help, they gave me so many options to choose from and said they could make sure my dishes never come in contact with peanuts. their dishes always come out with the cutest set up, the soup comes set upon a tiny dish with a candle underneath it, so pretty! the restaurant is always clean, always smells so good, the music and lighting are appropriate for the time of day, and the service has always been wonderful. the feeling of the restaurant is relaxed and comfortable and i love eating feeling no stress at all! i'd recommend this place for dinner any time or occassion, you will always be impressed here.

great service and food!. extremely friendly and attentive servers. answered all our questions.foodwas some of the best thai i have ever had. the panang curry was so flavorful i wanted to drink the sauce :)

best thaifoodive ever had.service is great. family friendly. huge menu. best calamari ever!

salty! then more salt.... very disappointed! went to pen thai based on urbanspoon's rating, #1 in bothell, (and in some reviews #1 thai in the seattle area).

se asian cuisine is all about 'fresh', flavored with a balance of salt/sour/hot/sweet. i've been to thailand and love thefoodthere. the basics for thefoodat pen thai was outstandingly fresh, i'll give them that, but the balance of flavors was truly awful.

the som tam (green papaya salad) came drenched in fish sauce without any hint of lime, kaffir lime leaves, onion, vinegar, or chili's. just a grated green papaya in fish sauce, not the utterly sublime dish that i love. grate a very mild apple and mix with anchovies and you'll be eating what i did.

i thought i might be able to compensate (after all, in bankok, on the street, you specify how much salt/sour/hot/sweet when the vendor is cooking it, so i asked for condiments, and was presented with dried off-color (old, orange-colored) chili flakes, chili oil (chinese), a chili paste, and what i thought at first was traditional "thai chili's in rice vinegar". i was ecstatic, sour/heat would make it better. but then i discovered that the traditional chili/vinegar condiment was chili/fish sauce, it only added to the saltiness, and had no heat.

the other two dishes we ordered, sizzling panang duck, and scallops prik pao, were equally brilliant in their freshness and the way they were cooked, and also equally salty and overwhelmed with fish sauce, and without any other flavor.

thought at first it might be a "chef's off tonight" thing, but this is saturday night. not going back until the reviews get better.

my favorite place to eat. i was buying $30 worth offoodfor just myself once a week back before i moved. cripsy garlic chicken, swimming rama, spring rolls, chicken satay, phad thai, princess curry - you really can't go wrong with anything on the menu.

does not except reservations for parties under five people


-----13 jun, 2011-----

thefoodis excellent but service can be very slow when they are busy.

always good. been going here with my wife for the past few years and have always had very good food, including many of the dishes noted in other reviews (crispy garlic chicken, phad thai, crab wontons). yes, probably on the expensive side and there are busy nights when service can be slow, but we have never found this to be normal. we love thaifoodand have tried some of the other thai restaurants around the kirkland area but this is still our favorite.

what happened?. the older reviews are no longer correct. they have kept the same menu and prices but switched to prepackaged processed food. we ordered a the crispy garlic chicken and a noodle dish were met with deep-fried chicken tenders and noodles that had been holding on a steam table for the better part of the evening. we ended up sending back thefoodand paying our bill.

overall, it was an offensive and demeaning experience.

the best. love thai food, and have been going to pen thai for years. my entire family really enjoys their food. our standard order consists of crispy garlic chicken, heavenly beef, princess chicken, crab won tons and fresh spring rolls. we've tried otherfood(all good) but seem to gravitate back to these favorites. we've never had a bad meal or bad service at pen thai. if i have a gripe, it's that it's a bit pricey. but we always have plenty of leftovers which makes the expense well worth it.

good thaifoodin a quaint setting, that's my first impression of my recent visit to pen thai restaurant . i was in seattle on business and some of the locals took us here for lunch, it was a great choice. there were about a dozen of us all told, and we w

average at best. on a recnet visit to bothell we decided to use the the urban spoon app on my iphone and it suggested pen thai. we did a little more research and saw that it had some good reviews. the restarant was a little difficult to find because it just has a sandwich board for a sign. we we walked in we were very impressed by the aromas and decor.the service was exceptional. i oerdered the chicken satay and cashew chicken. when the satay arrived i was surprised at the number of skewers (6) ofthem. it was very tastey and the peanut sauce was very good. i then received the cashew chicken moments after the satay had arrived. it was still trying to eat this mountain of chicken skewers while my cashew chicken sat on the table getting cold. when i finally tried the cashew chicken i was somewhat displeased at the flavour. i had asked for a heat rating of three out of five. the chcicken was tasteless and was coated in what i can only describe as a buffalo wing sauce. my partner had another chicken dish and when i sampled his i found the flavours to be very similar. the portions were huge!. we could have easily dined on one order of skewers and one chicken dish. this restaurant brings a whole new meaning to the term super size. sadly, i think the kitchen was more interested in pushing out thefoodrather than taking its time and developing the thai flavours in it's dishes.