Bangcook Tailandés — Restaurant in Chiapas

SUMMARY: Not authentic food.

I’ve lived on and off in Thailand for 6 years, and my girlfriend is Thai. We eat Thai food a lot on a regular basis, around the world.

One of my favorite dishes is papaya salad. I’ve had a lot of it, countless times. We also ordered Thai ice tea, Tom yum gung, and pad Thai.

The Thai ice tea came first, but it definitely had nothing Thai about it, it was more like a chai tea.

Then the papaya salad came. The papaya is supposed to be crunchy. Instead it was soggy, and had a hint of cucumber. I hate cucumber. Did I say I’ve eaten papaya salad a thousand times? Never have I ever tasted cucumber on any of those times. And never was it soggy, like it was in a container, soaking in the sauce.

The pad Thai had mushrooms which is weird but okay. It was also soggy when it’s supposed to be dry noodles. Flavor wise was ok. Probably because the flavor was diluted in the soggy noodles.

The Tom yum gung was decently tasteful. My (Thai) girlfriend suggested it may have been made out of premade powder. I don’t know, not my expertise.

Overall anybody who says this is anywhere close to authentic Thai food I’ll call that b.s. or you only ate Thai food in Phuket or Pattaya at the tourist places. If this is ‘fusion’ I can possibly buy it. And the 5 stars must be from locals who prefer this taste, I can understand that too. So just be aware. Vídeo included so it’s proof...

The decor and setup is nice, plenty of seating options, inside, at the bar to watch the chefs, outside, etc. Everything looked perfect as we arrived. The service was good but strange, with 3 or 4 different people waiting our table. There were a lot of employees getting in the walk ways and juts causing more confusion with each other.

We ordered two dishes and two drinks. The yellow curry, which was a little bit soupy and watery but still with acceptable flavor. Tom Yam soup (Sopa Mariscos), which had nice broth but the shrimp was really mushy and squishy. The jasmine tea was brewed so strongly, and Thai coffee wasn't exactly right either (the coffee needs to be brewed stronger when mixing with the condensed milk).

When we received the check, the server said he didn't put the soup on the bill, and added this verbally. I don't know if he did this on purpose, but insisted that the check reflect the proper price.

I watched the cooks stroking their beards, and eating food while working, without washing their hands.

I would not be so critical if the price wasn't so high. Huge prices demand excellent quality. This is yet another touristic place with a nice facade but barely...

I used to live in Thailand and was at first surprised and pleased to find this place three years ago. They weren’t quite authentic, but close enough.

On a recent visit however, I was severely disappointed. The food tasted so bad - not like Thai food at all. Given that they use Thai ingredients like galangal, you would think they would be able to make the food taste closer to the source.

It was like someone who had never tasted Thai food in their lives was given Thai ingredients, and made food that tasted good to them.

I lived in Northern and Southern Thailand, and spent many months eating Bangkok street food. This is not that.

The prices have also gone up, which might be fine due to inflation, but combined with the severe decline in taste, I wouldn’t eat here nor recommend anyone else to eat here.

What you DO get is a nice ambience, which is the case for any of the restaurants in this plaza. But no heart in the service. I’m so sad this has become...