Surin of Thailand — Restaurant in Huntsville

OhmyGOD another AMAZING meal at Surin tonight! We have been going to this place since it first opened years ago and it’s STILL my favorite restaurant in Huntsville. The folks there take unbelievable care of us, especially Jamie! When Jamie sees my car pull in she starts making my drink immediately and knows EXACTLY where I want to sit, depending on who’s coming with me. We have had so many nights when we have come in at opening at five and shut the place down because we were having such a great time. We’ve also had dinners where we were having difficult times and they’ve been truly compassionate and made sure that we had what we needed and took care of us with kindness while keeping their distance so that we could work through what we needed to. We have been for my birthdays more times than I can count, girls nights out, happy times, just because times and sad times because it feels like home. My friends joke that it’s just an extension of my dining room. Anyway, tonight the food was as amazing as it always is. We went with friends and got the usual suspects. The drunken fried rice is STUPID good and just the right amount of spicy for most people but I like it with more of the red pepper paste (it’s great with the dried hot peppers too but you have to be careful with that stuff and sometimes I tend to go overboard 🤣). The sweet and sour chicken was SO GOOD! Moist, perfectly fried and absolutely scrumptious. The cashew beef was crunchy perfection but I forgot to take a pic of the bbq chicken! The BBQ chicken is the one dish that Ialways recommend to people who don’t know what to get or are picky eaters. How they keep that chicken so moist but fall off the bone tender is a complete mystery to me. The sauce is always a bit sweet for me but I add some of the hot pepper paste and then it is perfect for me. And yes, we ordered too much but split it all and had leftovers too, although not the bbq chicken - it was too good! As always Jamie was a complete gem! She came back, checked on us, chatted for a second or two when she had time and made my buddy a delightful cosmo. God I love it here it feels like home 💕. Ask for Jamie, she’s an...

Surin of Thailand in Huntsville, AL is one of the best Thai restaurants I have visited. I do not claim to be an expert on Thai food. It is likely this is not the most authentic Thai restaurant. But, to my American taste, this restaurant has some of the best tasting dishes—even if or especially because it has adapted to appeal to American taste.

The Yum Yai salad is delicious. It has a sweet and sour peanut dressing that is outstanding. The lettuce in the salad was very fresh and the shrimp and chicken were well prepared.

The coconut soup accompanies many of the meals. It always has a great taste and a delightful start to the meal.

The basil rolls are also outstanding. They are also quite filling. We frequently order the rolls to take home for a light dinner as eating them along with a regular entree is too much food.

The chicken Masaman with avocado is another favorite. It comes with rice and the rice with the sauce on this dish is exquisite. It is a large dish, probably enough for two people in most instances. I have still consumed all of it at one sitting though despite the fact I should have taken half of it home with me for a later meal.

I have also split this dish with a dining companion and it was plenty of food for the two of us—especially when accompanied with a basic roll appetizer.

One of my favorite dishes is the Macadamia trout. It is a large meal, even on the luncheon menu. It has a delicious sauce and served on a bed of rice with fresh cooked spinach. I can eat it by myself. It would probably be better to split it and consume less food as it is a generous serving.

There are also a number of excellent sushi options available for lunch or dinner. The sushi preparation is in full view of customers with many of the ingredients for these dishes in full view.

There are too many outstanding dishes to mention in this review. For those with a taste for the real, hot Thai food, it is available. I have not tried it as my more middle-class palate has never adjusted to food with such a hot underpinning. I do not doubt it is excellent at Surin as the various dishes I have tried in many visits there have all been...

This used to be my favorite place to go. My spouse and I went last night (Friday) and they were, understandably, busy. We got seated fairly quickly by the bar (mistake one.) It was so loud. SO LOUD. I'm autistic, but I carry noise-cancelling loops around, so this wasn't a deal-breaker; even then, though, it was so loud that we had to literally shout to hear each other.

The basil rolls and spicy coconut soup are still delicious, but the stir -fry was tasteless and bland, cut into chunks that were too large to eat (and since I only had a fork, there was no way to cut the barely-cooked head of broccoli on my plate.)

I tried to get our server's attention multiple times to get some salt or soy sauce or, God forbid, a steak knife to saw this broccoli tree into manageable logs (or perform ritualistic seppuku) but after the obligatory "Is everything good?" (To which I replied "eeehhhhh... It's okay") they escaped so quickly that you'd have thought I was Beowulf's mother.

To the server's credit, though, once they'd had time to process the look on my face and tone of voice (and realized someone had actually answered the question with something other than a polite "yes, thank you, everything's fine, how are you?") they returned and asked what was wrong with the food (it's bland) and whether I wanted to order something else (nope.)

I did still have to indicate that we were ready for the check the next time they came by (I thought that would've been obvious, but 🤷🏻‍♀️) and it was dropped off like a hot potato, even though we had the card out and ready to go.

All in all, it wasn't a great experience. We still left a 20% tip because waiting tables sucks and we're not monsters, but we won't be going back. Next time I have a craving for some spicy coconut soup with shrimp, I'll...