Wanida Thai Cuisine — Restaurant in Bellingham

I had heard good things about this place so decided to stop in for a spur of the moment lunch by myself. Wasn't sure what to order...normally I get Thai food with others so we can order family style and try several things, but since I was solo I went with the lunch special which was Yellow Curry with sides of rice and Phad Thai that day (Thursday). It was kind of busy so I had chosen a table towards the back which happens to be near the restrooms since it's a very small place. I was distracted the whole time I was there by a weird perfume-y smell in the air which I think may have been coming from the air "freshener" in the restroom? I didn't visit the restroom while I was there so I can't confirm this, but beware if you have a sensitive nose. When the food came, it looked pretty good, but I was disappointed to discover that the vegetables (carrots and potatoes) in the curry were undercooked. The sauce was pretty tasty but the root vegetables shouldn't still be semi-hard! The Phad Thai was OK, although I consistently find this dish too sweet for my personal tastes, and don't normally order it, but since it was on the special I thought I'd give it a shot. It also seemed really basic like it didn't have the additions that usually make Phad Thai interesting-scrambled egg, scallions, basil, bean sprouts, crushed peanuts,etc. I found a couple of bean sprouts but otherwise it was mostly noodles. Also I had ordered hot tea with my meal and she asked if I wanted green or jasmine and I asked for jasmine, but it didn't taste like jasmine at all, I think she gave me green tea but by the time it had steeped I didn't want to ask to change it and wait for it to steep again. Also they charge $2.00 for tea, it doesn't come with the meal. Waitress was nice enough so I did leave a 20%+ tip making it an almost $20 lunch which I feel is a bit steep for what I got, especially for a lunch "special". Overall it was OK but not great, at least...

Went here with my wife to try something new and being a bellingham native for my whole life and hearing about this place I was disappointed. We waited to be seated for 5-10 minutes until we decided to seat ourselves. We didn’t get our water until a little bit before our meal and the tables after us got theirs after they were seated. After ordering our food the orange chicken was somewhat cold but still had a little warmth to it but oddly shaped orange chicken. My wife got her order wrong which was the pineapple curry and the waiter noticed the mistake and took it back to the chef. The chef, waiter, and lady who appeared to be the manager argued for about 5-10 minutes about who was probably wrong as they were showing receipts that the order was pineapple chicken. 10 minutes later my wife got her pineapple curry only for the chicken to have a weird distinct taste and one of the chicken pieces had a shape of a frog leg. We were not told sorry about getting the order wrong, when the lady came to give us our bill and asked if we needed a box she looked in disbelief as to why we didn’t eat her cold food. The bill was around $40 just for the pineapple curry not be even 1/4 eaten, we were not told sorry or even offered some sort of discount to their error and it was not acknowledged. Not only that but the workers were wearing masks to possibly not infect the food from a flu or this virus as we heard them cough while cooking. I am in disbelief would take my business elsewhere more professional like Xing’s Panda Palace on Sunset Drive, Panda express orange chicken could even compete...

CAUTION! MSG is in every item on the menu.

My grandma has a severve anaphylactic reaction to MSG and when we tried to figure out if their food could give her a reaction, the people in the kitchen couldn't give us a straight answer. Had it not been for my mom being extremely persistent, they would have served us a dish, said it "probably" doesn't have any MSG in it, and Grandma would have had to use her EpiPen. When I mentioned to the waitress that they should put a disclaimer on their menus to avoid any dangerous situations, she said that the amount was "negligible" I guess thinking that we wanted to avoid it out of principle. I explained that my grandma could die and that the small amount shouldn't be the deciding factor on whether they disclose it. She seemed shocked that that allergy existed and claimed she's never heard of something like that before. She seemed very helpful, besides a bit uninformed. However, she still charged us for the Thai coffee I ordered. Not unheard of, but surprising. If I were the waitress, I would have given the coffee for free and maybe thrown in a free meal next time they came in.

I haven't had the food yet, so I can't give it 1 star. I will readjust after I eat here at another time.

IN RESPONSE TO OWNER REPLY: This is what I was told, however these sauces are used in every dish and there was no way to substitute premixed sauces with fresh, MSG free ingredients. If the sauces used to COOK said dishes have MSG, this statement is...