THAI BANGKOK BISTRO — Restaurant in Fort Walton Beach

#1 -The bar/restaurant. #2 Yamunaaa Karthikeyan’s post.

The Bar/Restaurant: A small Thai oriented bar/restaurant, and most of the food is Thai, but they added Latino dishes which I really appreciate, given my Hispanic heritage. And, Bobby must bottle and sell his homemade sweet spicy chili sauce, that stuff is to die for! The bar/restaurant has one or two attendants running the bar and waiting tables, and the cook, Bobby. He is also the owner. Customer mix - mostly locals and some tourists too. People come alone, or on dates, as groups, and whatever. Also, community members can rent tables for birthday/retirement parties. The day-to-day age groups vary, but people sitting at the bar are between 25 -70 years old. And the restaurant clientele ranges from very young - very old. Staff will make accommodations for people who are handicapped. There is wheelchair access for the bathroom and people with pets are welcome in the covered patio area. I love hearing people from different cultures jabbering in their languages, laughing, and having a great time! On Sundays, its karaoke, and always a blast to listen to local talent. They sing Country, Rock or even old classics. And in different languages, like Filipino, Thai and Spanish. I sing too, but not very well. I've always appreciated the support of applause because my singing is probably most deserving of a volley of rotten tomatoes!! All in all, I recommend this bar/restaurant to anybody. You will enjoy the food. And you might make a few friends.

Karthikeyan’s post: It was divorced from reality, divisive, and disgusting. The Karthikeyan group arrived at the bar/restaurant with 10 people, including five kids, two under 24 months. The children were making a nuisance for other customers. The Karthikeyan party "adults," and I use the word "adult" loosely, of the party were spoken to multiple times. Apparently, they expected the other customers to tolerate their kids’ outbursts, and the three staff members to manage their children too. My apologies to you Yamunaaa, but where exactly on the menu did you see babysitting? Is this a new free service that Bobby's offering? Somehow, I doubt it. Karthikeyan’s party might not know the staffing of the facility. Maybe none of them are from around here, but it's a small bar/restaurant, with a team ranging from 2-4 depending on expected patron traffic. They can, will, and have geared up to respond to large groups, but it takes a moment. Patrons should not expect that somebody's going to open the door for them, another to walk them in, another to seat them, and another to mind their children too. And not surprisingly, they don’t have bathroom attendants either. It's a small place with good hardworking people. The Karthikeyan party had other options. There's a lot of restaurants in Destin they could have gone to, and they could have spent a whole lot more money, but they went to a small community bar/restaurant with their nasty attitudes, only paid for their drinks (none of the food that some group members partially consumed), and then Yamunaaa decided to leave an inflammatory review on this forum. That's terrible, but hold on, there’s more! Yamunaaa also accused Bobby of being a racist. That is slander!! I hope Bobby's lawyer reviews Yamunaaa’s slanderous post, agrees with me, and sues. I’d be happy to stand as Bobby’s character witness and would not be alone. I don't know if Yamunaaa is a local or was on vacation, and don't care. If she and her group can't control their kids, get a babysitter or go to McDonalds. And if that’s not good enough, stay home. Finally, to Yamunaaa, just because you have a different race or heritage than the restaurant owner, or staff, doesn't give you the right to call them racist unless they did/said something racist. We both know that never happened. No matter where you're from or what cultures are found there, everybody minds their kids. I’ve yet to hear of a culture where people drop their kids off at the restaurant to be managed by strangers. It doesn't happen. Bobby should sue you, and I...

After the good ratings here on Google and a recommendation from a good friend we were really excited to try out Bangkok bistro.

We were seated and ordered our drinks - the server seemed occupied with something else as my boyfriend tried several times to switch his sweet tea to a sweet Thai tea order when our drink order was taken. She unfortunately didn't listen and brought sweet tea anyway.

Then it took quite a while until we were able to actually order our food as they were quite occupied with a table of four that just came in after us though the restaurant was otherwise relatively empty.

It took nearly 15 minutes to get our C rangoons with shrimp which were actually pretty good. Unfortunately the second plate we got our cutlery on was dirty which the server exchanged on my boyfriend's request. The first exchange plate she brought us she took right back with her as she noticed it was also dirty and it seems she had to look for a clean plate....

After that we waited for a long time on our food and it was disappointing to see that the table of four which came in after us got fully served with food before us and we still had to wait an additional time for our two plates.

My boyfriend enjoyed his meal - not the best but also not the worst he had so far. However, I found my Thai salad with grilled chicken breast relatively boring. I've eaten Thai chicken salad at two other Thai places so far and it is normally my personal favorite. The salad I got was reminiscent of a steak house salad with grilled chicken, which turned out to be very dry and not completely cut through what can be difficult if you only have fork and spoon as cutlery. The garlic bread served with it lacked in garlic flavor and was oddly soft - it looked nicely browned but had no crunch whatsoever. The best of my dish where the house pickles - everything else tasted pretty boring and generic - not the yummy Thai salad I am normally used to.

My Thai coffee tasted a bit bland, the sweet tea was ok. After already having to wait for so long in sum we decided against a dessert...

We were quite disappointed about the overall food and service experience and though the rangoons were quite delicious, they alone are not worth for us to...

We will not ever come back. The racism was blatantly disgusting. My family and I were visiting from out of town. I am Thai and I wanted some authentic food. I was immediately disappointed. We were not greeted when we walked in. Someone from a table said, “sit anywhere”. We sat down and waited over 5 minutes. No one came to bring us menus. We were not acknowledged at all. A family of 8 came in right after us. They were immediately greeted by the server, she took their drink and appetizer order, went to the back to make their drinks and then delivered the drinks. When she dropped off their drinks, she took their order. Meanwhile, we we’re still sitting without menus or drinks. We had to flag the waitress down for menus. She put the menus down and left. We still had no drinks. It was obvious what was going on, my grown kids were the wrong color. When we flagged the waitress down for the third time she came to our table and tried to deliver us the food in her hand; we never even ordered drinks. We had to tell her we had not ordered drinks appetizers or food because she served 2 other tables before us. I had to speak in Thai to get her to pay us attention long enough so we could order our appetizers. She was rushing us so bad so we ordered everything at once. She never came back to refill drinks or check on us. She was attentive to all the other tables. My kid’s are mixed and it’s clear they are half black. The racism was thick against me and my family. The quickest service we received was when we asked for the check. The food was mediocre, the service was a zero. It’s sad when an establishment doesn’t value our green dollar because of our darker skin color. I would not recommend anyone to patronize this racist establishment. As I said before, I am Thai, my kids are mixed but our money is as green as every other race in that racist establishment. I do not recommend supporting this business if your skin is the wrong color…they do not welcome darker skinned ...