Garden Room - Mae Sri — Restaurant in Montreal

Let’s get one thing out of the way - there are VERY few restaurants that serve actual Thai food in Montreal, and Mae Sri absolutely is one of them.

Mae Sri has a big focus on Thai noodle soups, along with a few other staple dishes to round up their offering - and for for the most part, they really get those right.

We started with a first round of a salad + 2 soups: Lab Kai Tod 7/10 The fried chicken was stellar, and the aromatics of this classic salad were definitely there, but I had to dock some points for the “deconstruction” of it. Lab (or laab) is traditionally chopped thinly, so that every bite contains a bit of everything. This made the “salad” experience a little harder to enjoy, as I had to make sure some mint, some coriander, just a bit of red onion was all part of every bite.

Boat Noodle Ayuthaya: 6/10 This was my only disappointment. While the broth definitely was packed with flavours, it was barely enjoyable due to having spoonfuls of chili oil apparently dropped in it, which covered essentially all taste and made it almost inedible. This comes from someone who routinely munches on Fresh Thai Chillies, I can take the heat, but this just wasn’t balanced, or fun. Portion was very generous!

Seafood Tom Yum: 8/10 Tom Yum is very often seen as a spicy, red broth shrimp soup, sometimes containing coconut milk or evaporated milk, and most Thai eateries here (and even there) will offer that version of it - but in reality, Tom Yum just means Hot and Sour, and it doesn’t have to be creamy. This was the clear version of this classic soup, in a super generous portion, filled with huge shrimp, calamari and fish balls. The broth itself was perfectly balanced, but the calamari was a little too cooked and chewy. Still a favourite when we go there!

We then continued our meal with round 2: Baa Mee Moo: 10/10 This is as good as it gets. It is a rudimentary comfort-food type noodle dish with no broth, but covered in glisteny pork “butter” (it’s better than it sounds). Incredibly satisfying flavours and portion size. I have not had this much authenticity in Thai food anywhere else other than Thailand itself, you can’t come here without trying it!

Pad Kra Pao: 8/10 Well done, authentic, a little shy on the meat portion here. Absolutely must take the extra egg on the side as it balances the heat along with the rice. Perfect amount of heat, but I would have liked to see some more basil in this basil stir fry!

Green Curry Chicken: 8/10 Truly impressive curry soup. It had the pungent aroma and kick of a Bangkok food court, the texture was just the right amount of creamy, and the chicken was fantastically tender. Would have liked to see some of the traditional vegetables (or any really) that typically go with it such as Thai Aubergines!

I would actually give 4.5/5 if I could, simply because there is always room for some amelioration, but this restaurant deserves the extra praise. Staff was great, location is clean and spacious, and it was all in all a great experience, for a very reasonable price. If you are interested in an authentic Thai food, this is one of your best (only)bets...

I went here at 2 pm sunday, but I have a reservation at 3 pm because somehow that’s the earliest I could book. I told the server if I could dine in now because the restaurant was 80% empty and he said unfortunately no because it was fully booked. I understood and came back around 2.45 pm and expected to see the restaurant getting fuller and it was even emptier than before. Now I wonder if it was really fully booked or the server was just lazy to do his job. This is the first bad incident.

Second, there was a flyer saying that we could get the 25$ food set for student. We showed the same server if we could order it and show the student card. He said he needs to check with his manager first (?????) and disappear for quite awhile.

Then he came back and just said “tell me” and we were like tell what? Then he said tell me what you want to order. Like bro, is this how u talked to a customer?

Third, we ordered the cocktail right when we were seated (even before the second incident) but it took like half an hour to get it. The server came back and ask if we got the cocktail and we said no. He came back in 3 mins with the cocktail that looks like 1 min to make and the ice was a little melted. The restaurant was very empty which made me not understand this at all.

Fourth, the food took so longgggg like super long. We were super hangry because as I said we went there at 2 pm but get to dine at 3 pm. and we got the food at almost 4 pm. It took like 45 mins for the food and bamm! They got it wrong.

Five, we ordered the boat noodle and after a long wait (45 mins) they served us the tom yum noodle. We asked the server twice if this is the boat noodle and he said yes. But we know how the boat noodle is so we had to open the menu and showed him how the boat noodle suppose to look like. He went back and came back in 10 mins with the right noodle.

Six, the boat noodle tastes really bland. We could not finish it. So we had to order the fried chicken rice. (I also got the Yentafo it taste okay) to full fill our hangriness.

Seven, after I finished my Yentafo and my partner finished the rice. Another sever came up and serve the chicken rice again. Meaning that they made it twice.

I never been to any restaurant that has a really messed up operation like this before. The only good part about this place is the interior. Normally if i dont like the food or not enjoy the restaurant. I will just keep it to myself because i know how bad review can hurt the business but here…it really ruin my sunday (and i still paid the tip of 15%)

I am also wondering if the good review here are fake because it kept compliment the server like too much and the service that i receive is probably worst than those cheap...

Dear lord! Where do I begin… Party of 4 for my birthday. I just wanna start by saying the place is beautiful and cozy and very social media worthy. Needless to say, I had high expectations from the pictures and my love of Thai food. Ambiance is ok. It could just use some music to make it a bit more lively. Service was personable and welcoming. Although I think our general disappointment of the food and drinks ended up having a negative impact in the end unfortunately. So here it is. The expression “Don’t judge a book by its cover” applies here but not in the positive sense. Everything looks great! But the taste is generally very mid. Not you’d expect from Thai food. And especially not at that price point. I expected elevated street food (which is generally less than 2$ per dish in Thailand) and what we got overcook, what seemed like 10x refried pork belly, noodle texture issues but the absolute worse was OFFENSIVELY SALTY dishes. One component specifically, the ground pork mixture, was shockingly inedible. So much so, that it made the dishes extremely difficult to enjoy. Other dishes were equally also overly salty even without that component in it. Even the drinks were salty! Our very kind waitress offered replacements but at this point, we almost felt pranked. The drinks were replaced by half full glasses of canned ginger ales at 5,25$ each… We were hungry so we ate some but the whole experience was extremely frustrating. I even felt the embarrassment from our server who didn’t even come to bring us the bill or see us out, despite the fact no complaints were made and we were nothing but nice to her. No compensations or complementary deserts were offered either. Did I mention it was my birthday? We all came home with stomach aches and I’m still completely dehydrated, waking up many times during the night to...