Flavors of Mae Kong Thai Restaurant — Restaurant in El Paso

I’ve been looking for a Thai restaurant in the area and happened to find Flame Thai when my husband and I were driving around one evening. We both wanted to try their food since it’s hard to find Thai establishments out here in El Paso. I’m from SoCal and there were plenty of options where I lived.

Flame Thai is a pretty big restaurant when you walk in. They have plenty of seating for their customers which is nice. The decor is very sparse and two out of the 3 tv screens up at the front were not working. They allowed us to pick where we wanted to sit and we chose one of the booths. Right away I noticed part of the crown molding on the wall was missing. The overall visual appeal of the restaurant could use some tlc or a whole new revamp.

For the positives: our waiter was friendly and attentive. He came to check up on us a couple times throughout our meal which was nice. Their Thai tea came in pretty big glasses and tasted good! Tasted like the bottled Thai tea I used to get from the market. I did like their crab Rangoon for appetizer, it was fried perfectly and the sauce for dipping was tasty! I also ordered the red curry and requested extra curry sauce. The portion was huge and enough for two people. They also got the spice level perfectly.

The negatives were the beef bowl my husband ordered. He said it was very bland and had virtually no flavor. It also looked more like a salad bowl with how much lettuce they filled it with. The biggest disappointment was their pad Thai. That is one of my favorite Thai dishes and they managed to mess it up. For some reason it tasted more like sweet and sour noodles rather than pad Thai. I did not taste any fish sauce at all in the dish. It make me think of orange chicken sauce mixed with rice noodles. Not very tasty at all and I was left disappointed. Pad Thai is one of the most common dishes you find at Thai restaurants so I’m not sure how they managed to screw it up so badly.

Lastly, the price of everything was over $80. Which both my husband and I did not think was worth the quality of food we got. Very expensive for subpar dishes. Not even the crab Rangoon or red curry could make it worth the price. We most likely would not return but I’m glad the whole meal wasn’t a busy. They had a couple decent dishes but the ones they messed up just couldn’t justify...

This is the first time I'm about to 1 star a restaurant, and you get this for messing up my childhood dishes. Not only that, the food looks like it was made with no pride. Just a bunch of ingredients thrown together and forgotten about

Spicy beef noodle- IS NOT SPICY. It's supposed to be spicy, salty, and slightly sour. THIS was SWEET! The only thing even close to spicy was the chili oil container they put in my to go box which was more oil than pepper itself. After the chili is in, I had this big oily mess of sweet broth noodles. I ate the meat only and flushed the rest down the toilet. 1/5

Combination Pho- SAME broth being used. Did you really think people wouldn't notice? It taste like chicken broth and sugar! Pho broths in general are supposed to be BEEF based, especially from boiling beef parts! On top of that, the combo meat thrown in looked like leftover toppings they just wanted to get rid of- chicken breast, beef, and shrimp. I don't know why I even tried to take a few bites. It's depressing to even look at it so I chucked it away. 1/5

Papaya Salad- This was a huge disappointment. I've been eating Papaya Salad since I was 3. This is missing A LOT of flavors! Doesnt have the soy sauce, fish sauce, no crab paste, pa dek, AND tamarind powder. 1/5

Green Tea Drink- Tastes like it's made from powder, water, and the blender. Basic. 2/5

Fried Rice and Salt Pepper Shrimp- Only things decent in my order. I can tell the fried rice was rushed because it's stuck together with the rice texture of goopy outside and chewy inside. Shrimp is battered but it doesn't need it. The flavors in both are decent. 2/5

Food is supposed to be an experience of heritage when it comes to cultural cuisine....

Came here when the restaurant had just opened and let me tell you the restaurant has CHANGED. And certainly not for he best. Considering this place is called “Mekong Thai” it gives a sense that it changed owners and doesn’t know what it wants to be… they serve mediocre “Japanese American” sushi, “Vietnamese” pho, “American Chinese” kung pao type of dishes, and a few Thai plates. Their Thai menu used to be HUGE and has been reduced by 3/4 its original size in order to include all these other random dishes that are sub par. I still stuck to my original orders that I used to eat when voting Thailand and got my Tom Yum soup, coconut soup, drunken noodles, and mango sticky rice for about $64 total. Potions were fine but quality was TERRIBLE. Tom yum was all broth, with frozen shrimp, canned mushrooms, and no lemon grass. You’re supposed to eat it with Thai sticky rice and gave regular super store white rice from basic Chinese restaurants. Drunken noodles didn’t seem drunk and instead light stir fried, and coconut curry was nothing to write home about and coconut was over powering. Mango sticky rice didn’t make it and was not included in order. Iv had it before but with such a change I don’t feel confident writing about it. I feel like many Asian restaurants in El Paso blame the customers because we are mostly Hispanic and think we are uninformed, but fail to realize that good food brings people in. This place is far from being a Thai restaurant and should rename to “Asia palace” or something until they can figure out their identity. In the end probably the last chance I will be giving to this restaurant. I’ll wait for when I’m out of town to eat Thai until a good place opens...