Malinee's Thai House — Restaurant in Ajax

I am hugely disappointed with our 1st experience at Malinee's. The online comments about the food, the taste and experience were overwhelmingly positive. Based on these comments, we decided to try Malinee's for dinner.

The positives: the waiter appeared to be new, but he was trying really hard to make sure we had everything we needed. So service was excellent, no complaints. The restaurant is clean, its small and after about a dozen patrons can feel loud. But it's not unpleasant. I don't see anyone eating in and staying longer than necessary.

The negative: Only one, but it's the primary reason for going to a restaurant. The food was bland, the protein was just boiled meat, without flavor. And it had a really weird overwhelming odd taste. At first I commented that it tasted like plastic, and I earnestly wondered if something plastic had mistakenly been cooked in the dish, but eventually I realized it was some seasoning or sauce.

Regardless, the Coconut chicken soup was bland, but better than the green curry chicken which was weak, bland, and without flavor. The chicken in it was tasteless. We mixed both the soup and green curry to try to have some flavour, it helped slightly but overall it was a waste of effort.

Who doesn't like sweet and sour chicken? My kids! My kids eat sweet and sour regularly, they had a few bites and then just stuck to the fried rice, which was the only thing they liked.

We brought the food home, and it's still sitting in the fridge. Nobody wants it. I feel terrible for having to write a negative review like this. I really wish the food had been better.

For Thai food, I feel there are better options available in Ajax/Pickering and normally I would stick to one of them. But again the reviews were so glowing about the food at Malinee's, we just had to try. It feels like we went to a whole different restaurant. I even double checked the sign once outside to confirm we did indeed come to Malinee's.

I don't like leaving stinging reviews, the restaurant owners work hard and I feel empathy for their efforts, but I also don't like to leave positive reviews of food that was frankly not very good.

Could this be an off night for Malinee's? Absolutely! And I can only hope future patrons have a better "food" experience...

If I could leave a negative star I would, this place is a nightmare. Do NOT ever eat here. The first time we had the pad Thai and red beef curry we felt it tasted good and decided to return last night. The owner is psychotic and I am shocked she can treat customers this way.

I ordered the pad Thai and a beef curry again and paid close to 25$ for my order. When I got home the pad Thai was so dry, the noodles all stuck together in a ball. There were so many noodles but hardly any sauce and only two pieces of chicken most of it was scrambled egg. When I tried it the pad Thai tasted very burnt, she had clearly scraped off the burnt parts but the food still had the flavour and some of the black burnt parts were still in it and inside the container. The green herbs in it had gone brown and had spots on them which indicates how old this was and was sitting out for who knows how long. We felt sick to our stomachs.

The curry my husband had was such a tiny portion it was barely enough for one person and the beef was very chewy. I called the restaurant and the owner picked up. The minute I started to say that I just purchased the pad Thai and curry and the pad Thai is burnt she didn't even let me continue and hung up on me. I kept calling back and she sent me straight to voicemail I was FURIOIS and grabbed all the food and drove back show her the food and she closed the restaurant and had a sign saying she had to close early.

This place is a disgrace for customer service and disgusting food. I don't even know how old it is or what goes in it. I was so upset and we had no dinner. The way she treats her customers is absolutely unacceptable and this place should...

Like most people, the high ratings brought me here. I love Thai food so I've tried several Thai restaurants in the GTA so I was really excited about trying this place BUT this place is terrible!! I had to do a double take and check the address to make sure I was at the right restaurant. When we walked in I couldn't help but notice how dirty the place is. There is a dirty blanket covering the view into the kitchen and my very 1st thought when I seen that was to leave but I wanted to give it a chance. I am really confused about the 5 star reviews? Perhaps, this lady is burnt out or had a bad day and explains why she did not produce quality dishes for us. My family and I tried to give her the benefit of the doubt but the food, the service and the cleanliness was all horrible! We were also the only people in there so she didn't have to rush to make our food?

The tom yum soup we ordered was lacking in taste. The massaman curry potatoes were hard because they weren't cooked and the curry sauce had this gross aftertaste. The coconut rice was mushy. The chicken fried dumplings were ok. The only thing we actually enjoyed was the mango salad. The lady Malinee treated us nice at first but once we were ready to pay she was super rude.

Not to mention, our utensils were dirty and the hand towel in the women's bathroom was so dirty it was brown. It made me lose my appetite. I really wanted to love this place but unfortunately, I wouldn't return or recommend it. TRUST your gut instinct. It is never wrong - I just wish I would've...