Thai Metta Restaurant — Restaurant in Fort Wayne

I wanted to give this 4.5 stars. It's a great place, just not perfect. But Google won't let me lol.

So I had 3 different orders here, 1 dine-in and 2 deliveries. I wanted to review only after I had the dine-in experience, although the first delivery was enough to impress me.

I ended up having too many dishes to put in a single review, so I'll just have a few words about the things that left an impression on me:

Thai tea is great and chicken satay is the sht, just like you'd expect in any good Thai restaurant (even if this one is in fact owned by people from Burma).

If I have to choose a best dish to recommend, it would be the Kun Chin Fried Rice. It was very smoky and satisfying and the lap cheung (Chinese hard sausage, not sure if this is what they referred to as Kun Chin or not. It probably is) is some of the best stuff I've had. Substantial and savory without being too sweet nor hard to chew.

Pad Siew is great. It reminded me a lot of old Mahnin, before the owner change. Thick, chewy, and extra savory with very tender beef.

Som tum is decent. It looks great and is flavored excellently, not too sweet, not too sour, and they actually respect your chosen spice level. It was pretty barebones however and the chicken is okay.

The Ayutthaya (Thai Noodle) is also great. Better than any phở out there in this town imo and I don't hesitate to say that as a Vietnamese. The beef is tender, cut thick, and the broth is very bold. In contrast, phở broth is typically lighter with more of a beef tallow flavor to it, and the meat is cooked rare and cut very thin.

The "Thai Street Food" is basically their take at a pad gra prao (rice dish) and as far as I know, is considered their house special. I can see why. The flavor profile is simple, but built in a way that you can't stop eating it. The egg is fried perfectly as the star of the show.

Curry is good in general. Very rich and flavorful.

Now the not-so-good stuff. If there's a real complaint I have with this restaurant, it's that a LOT of the non-mainstream dishes are very underfocused? Most of the appetizers were okay at best, aside from the chicken satay. Fried chicken in particular is dry and underflavored and all around disappointing.

They serve old mangos in their curry and sticky rice. Now there's a sour, crunchy type of mangos that is great for sticky rice yet looks quite pale, but this is not that. This is just old mangos.

In general, I do highly recommend Thai Metta as things are right now. However, you do have to be selective with what you order from the menu since many of their dishes seem to differ in quality. If you just stay with the mainstream Thai dishes (Ayutthaya Thai Noodle, Pad Siew, Pad most things, etc), you should be okay, though. Oh, and avoid mangos if you can help it.

The real reason I cannot give the full 5-stars however is that most of my positive impression ultimately boiled down to "it's the closest thing to old Mahnin", but I believe any great restaurant should display its own identity. With the previous owner of Mahnin preparing a new restaurant, I don't know how much longer Thai Metta can stay as a recommended destination before getting overshadowed. So, one point off for lack of...

Had the tom yum soup and ginger stir fry and glass of water. $31 with tip. Kinda pricey. But then everything is more these days. Bowl of tom yum was medium sized. Could've made a light meal of that but I was really hungry. Portion size of ginger stir fry dish was ok, not too large or too small compared with other Thai places in fort wayne. I've been to most thai restaurants in fort wayne and dozens elsewhere and I've been to Thailand. I love thai food. This place's tom yum was pretty good but not the best Ive had. I can take very spicy food. I ordered both dishes "very spicy" and the soup was moderately spicy for me. Your results may vary. The ginger dish wasn't spicy at all which was disappointing. In fact, the sauce was a more thick and sweeter than I like and compared with most other ginger stir fry I've had. Otherwise, the ingredients in both dishes seemed fresh and the seasoning was decent. Curiously, there was only 1 other customer‐couple there the entire 30 min I was there between 12:30-1:00 on a Friday afternoon. Kinda makes you wonder why. In fact I almost left before ordering because of that. Place was clean and service was...

My wife and I decided the check this place out Wednesday night. We started with the fried tofu appetizer which was very nice paired with sweet and sour sauce. My wife had the Jasmine Tea which was great even without sugar or honey.

I had a Pepsi which was also nice. My wife ordered the Green Curry which is hands down the best Curry Sauce she or I have every tasted! The flavors are bold and delicious! The Jasmine Rice they served with it was nice and fluffy.

I ordered the Basil Fried Rice with Chicken at Medium Spice level. The aroma was fantastic and the taste was amazing! I've had a lot of fried rice dishes here in town, and this is by far some of the best I've had.

Staff was very nice, all the food was fresh and hot and my wife and I already look forward to going back. I highly recommend this place and I hope they stick around for...