Benjarong Thai Cuisine — Restaurant in Maple Valley

A restaurant can only be as good as the ingredients they use to make the food. This place, at best, is a semi-homemade quick serve Thai place. The names of the food and the decor are Thai. Their food tastes like it was made with store bought pastes and ingredients. The lack of fresh produce used in their pad Thai and curries produces a rather bland and lifeless attempt at traditional Thai cuisine. There is no lemongrass or green onions anywhere to be found in the final product and if you are wondering what lemongrass tastes like, it is the distinct flavor that makes Thai food taste different than other Asian cuisine. There is also a surprising shortage of actual Thai chilies, so even the spiciest you order it will probably be much weaker than a standard bottle of Tapatio hot sauce.

Now with that said, I do give it 2 stars simply for existing in an area where fast food and pizza are king. Maple valley doesn’t exactly have a very diverse food scene so the fact that this place is an island of Asian cuisine in a field of pizza and fast food is a plus, but if you are expecting the Thai food you had in college or in Seattle, you will be very disappointed. You could probably make this food with a couple of YouTube lessons and a trip to Fred Meyer for 1/4th the price...

I'm pretty confused how this has such good reviews. We have eaten at the Benjarong in Covington and it was great. Our dinner at the Maple Valley location last night was so terrible. Maybe an off day but not one we are willing to try again. I think they may have been out of a few ingredients because my pad see ew was made with some sort of fish sauce and not black bean sauce (I can't stand seafood). My son ate one fish cake and wouldn't take another bite (my husband confirmed that they were "just nasty.") My husband liked his noodles but before we were out of the parking lot, we had to swing by Fred Meyer for some Pepto and he was ill the rest of the evening. Every plate on the table was chipped, the menus were covered with food and they refused to give my 2 year old a real plate and made her eat of a paper plate (maybe other toddlers are why the plates are chipped but my 2 year daughter has better manners than many adults). Save yourself the money and start at Dairy Queen (which is where...

An empty restaurant at 6pm is a bad sign, and I should have known better. I'd already ordered over the phone though, so I was committed to eating it. If you think Safeway's deli China Express is good Chinese food, you'll be happy with this version of Thai food. Except you'll pay a lot more, $10-13 per dish.

I was told that the garlic chicken was good, but the irritated person answering the phone didn't know what that was. I said, "lightly fried, some vegetables, no sauce", and she didn't know what that was. When I got there and showed her the picture, she told me I should have said "crispy" garlic chicken. Because lightly fried is completely different from crispy, I guess.

This empty restaurant is going to be a little emptier, because I won't be back. Drive to Renton if you want more...