Thai Barn Na Mississauga — Restaurant in Mississauga

I am going to give my most honest review as a person who visited Thailand very often my entire life and a fan of Thai food myself.

Was the food good? It was very, very good. Was it close to real Thai food? No, unfortunately but fortunately to an extent it wasn’t. This is because Thai Barn Na had a very special way to make their food. The Pad Thai tasted really rich in a way that you can feel when eating a deeply simmered broth, I honestly can not guess how they’re able to bring that taste to this dish. Every bite was full of flavours, optimal moist but not at all the oily taste. If you love spicy food, the green Thai curry definitely worth a try because it is a “as close as you can get” version that is suitable for North American customers’ preferences and the right degree of spices compared to the ones from Central Thailand. The chicken we ordered was also really good, of course not similar to the real plate of its name - Pad Prik, but was with the caramelized umami of wok-fried soy sauce, without being oily or dry at all. So again, not necessarily having the 100% authentic Thai flavours, they just made it good their way - imagine a Thai family with high cooking skills making food in their own kitchen.

On top of the taste, the service was amazing. The waiter was so, so nice. We ordered two butterfly pea coconut tapioca but they were out of stock, so they gave us a cheesecake instead and it was on the house. We came on a Tuesday, which had a special offer for free Thai milk tea or Thai lime tea. Both tasted very authentic and not too sweet. Every dishes had nice, locally/friendly presentation, and the price was very reasonable among Toronto’s restaurants (we spent ~100 for 4 people!)

I’ve read some low review comments before coming to have a better choice of restaurant because we are only visiting Toronto for a few days this time, however, I haven’t experienced any of the things written in others, which I believe must mean that Thai Barn Na really values the customers’ opinions and tries to improve their service for the best experiences. I only knew this place from a friend who locates locally around the neighbourhood, though, after my experience I do believe the restaurant really deserves to be known by more people.

Overall, good experience, good food, good service! Definitely worth a shot if you’re visiting/going to...

A simple summary It's an overpriced Thai express.

Food: Very salty, and do not order anything from the first and last page. It seems they focus on 3 main dishes and the others are just there to make the menu look bigger. Restaurants that have soup based or curry base, usually keep a soup/sauce stock that cooking 101, but to wait 45 minutes for a curry and a tom yum soup is gross miss management; if they had to make those from scratch. The 3 main dishes which the other tables ordered arrived in less then 15 minutes. The food presentation on anything other than the 3 featured items is very lacking. Example one of the star dishes they would put a bamboo basket cage over your food making it interesting coming to your table.

SERVICE: It would be 1 star for service but I understand that I may have gone at peak hours of dinner. However ignoring the only table in the center of your restaurant, and giving all your attention to the near by tables to ask "if they need anything"or check on them is inexcusable. I must have raised my hand a dozen times in the 45 minute wait for a curry, a mango salad, and a tom yum soup. All to be ignored as they walked right on by. Only after seeing I was annoyed by the wait did they come with water and check on me.

Atmosphere: The wall decoration is werid, having neon words "trapped in my mind" doesn't shout "I am in a thai restaurant", more like a poetry lounge. However it doesn't bother me as much as the table arrangement, the space layout is very cramped. Being the only table in the center of the restaurant, I was bumped and pushed by other patrons getting up or sitting down. Or by the Service staff walking by, ignoring my signal for their attention. I think after reflecting on my experience they are truly "trapped in my mind" as the worse dine in experience I have had

Conclusion: I had high hopes for them in a city that is flooded with Thai restaurants and Thai/vietnames fusions. They could have been a diamond in the rough, a hidden Gem among generic and restaurants claiming to be authentic Thai cuisine. However they fall flat in all areas, and the prices of their items does no justify, the portion of the non 3 items. In a city that has so many options for Thai cuisine. They fall short in taste, flavour, service and atmosphere. Save your stomach and your wallet. There are...

The experience overall was disappointing to say the least, especially considering that they just opened and the expectations were high.

We are a huge fan of the Thai Barn Na Etobicoke location and was super excited to see a Thai Barn Na in Mississauga. At first glance, the atmosphere, vibe, and space was much more welcoming than the Etobicoke location, which was a plus on that matter.

The service was super slow, considering that we came in during lunch and there were only 1 other table that needed to be served. We waited for 10-15 min for someone to come by and finally decided to call them to us instead.

For drinks, we ordered Thai Milk Tea and I could tell right away that it was going to be milky because it wasn't that deep orange color that it should be, it was light peach almost. Indeed I was right because it tasted more milky than Tea-ish. Way too much milk!

For the Apps, we ordered Mango Salad, Papaya salad, Fried chicken, & Calamari. The salads didn't have a kick to them the way Thai salad should be. The fried chicken, highly recommended by the server there, was not crispy and was more like rubber chicken. It was too saucy and a tad too sweet. The calamari was good, however, the portion of the calamari was smaller than the one they serve at the Etobicoke location.

For the Main, we ordered a Beef Pad See Ew and 3 orders of Pad Thai. The Beef pad sew was good. Beef was nice and tender. The Pad Thais were a huge disappointment. One of the dishes tasted fishy (salted fish kind of taste), the noodles were too wet and mushy, the sauce was too sweet, and although we ordered them to be spicy, they were not spicy at all. The Etobicoke location will make it the right spice! At the Etobicoke location, my hubby would always be able to finish his Pad Thai dish and I would even have to share some of mine, but here, all of us did not finish our dish. We got to half way and called it quits.

I called the Etobicoke location shortly after our meal to leave my review. I want the Mississauga location to do better so that I don't have to drive all the way to Etobicoke for this. Hope they can make some changes, however, we will still go to Etobicoke from now on. I wouldn't want to spend $100+ and not be able to...