Anong's | Thai Cuisine — Restaurant in Rawlins

I was so excited to see a well-rated Thai restaurant in the middle of our road trip. We love trying local places & enjoy meeting the people. My name is not Karen. I don’t think I’ve ever given a 1-star review before. I own a retail business myself and always assume positive intent. I try hard to extend a little grace, especially to front line staff who have little control over difficult situations. If I do get poor service I usually just don’t leave a review. The service today was so incredibly unacceptable I feel compelled to share. We arrived at about 12:15 - so it’s lunch rush & a small wait isn’t unheard of. So we were delighted to see 2 open tables when we walked in. It was actually a 4-top & a 2-top pushed together but there was plenty of room to move them apart. There were 2 young ladies serving the dining room. After a few minutes 1 of them came up to us & told us their tables were full & it would be 20 minutes or more wait. We were surprised. I asked her if the 2 tables in front of us were reserved; she said the boss requires them to save that for parties of 8 or more (again, it was a 6-top). I said, “you sure that’s required? Do you get a lot of parties that size at lunch?” She said her boss was strict about that and they do often get larger parties. We could tell a few parties were nearly finished so said we were ok to wait. At that point another party (of 2) arrived. They were told it would be just a few minutes. About 5 minutes later the other server came over and said “I’m sorry but you are going to have to wait a few minutes. My boss said that if you’re going to be disrespectful we can’t serve you. Did you still want to wait?” I was completely dumbfounded. We hadn’t said anything else or done anything but wait patiently. So I said, “I’m sorry but I don’t know what you mean. All I did was ask if those tables were reserved.” She said ok. About 5 minutes later a table opened up. She came and told me that the boss said she could seat us there; she just needed to clean it. So she cleared it & told the other server to clean it, which she did. They did not seat us. Then another table opened up; they cleaned it quickly and seated the other party. Still ignored us. So we thought maybe they assumed we knew we could sit down since they had told us it would be our table, & sat down. 5 minutes go by during which they neither looked at us or brought us menus. The other party got menus when they sat down. They came & took their order & still ignored us. At this point it was obvious they didn’t want to serve us, so we decided to leave. It’s really too bad because the food looked delicious. If they had just seated us when the next table had become available & fed us, I’m sure the food would have recovered the experience. I’ve honestly never been so poorly treated in a...

Last week on our way to Grand Teton National Park, this place was really good! Food was fabulous, service was good — again good, but not great. So when we finished at the Grand Tetons this morning and were driving through this way again, we decided to stop in for another Thai dinner. We were the 2nd table to be seated after arriving at 5:04pm. We were originally seated right at the front door where the building across the street was shining the sun’s reflection into my husband’s eyes. So he asked to have another table (only one other table was still being used at the time). We were told told yes, so we moved to a table nearer the kitchen. Then we were totally ignored while several other tables began to fill up and were served waters and had their their drink orders and even their dinner orders taken. We had to stop someone to simply ask for waters. We sat patiently for quite some time waiting to be greeted, asked for our drink order and to order our dinner. It became obvious to us that we were being ignored on purpose for simply asking for a different table from where the building reflection wouldn’t be blinding my husband. So, after being ignored a good 15 minutes, we got up to leave. One server looked at us as we began to walk away from our table. I told her quietly that we were leaving because no one had come to help us (even though we were the 2nd group to arrive and 5 other tables had already placed their dinner orders). She had nothing to say to us and didn’t seem concerned about our mistreatment what so ever. I don’t care how good your food is, if you are rude to customers; especially rude on purpose — we will not stay to be mistreated. I highly recommend that you bypass this place while going...

Before I had friends in Rawlins, I just found it strange that there were billboards for Thai food on I-80 through Wyoming, and I never stopped.

I always assumed it wouldn’t be authentic...

I. Was. So. Wrong.

As a background to my Thai food experience... I’ve been to Thailand, and experienced all the amazing food “at it’s source.”

-Come to find out (thanks to my Rawlins friends) Anong herself, was born in Thailand. I’m still amazed that she chose of all places, Rawlins, Wyoming to open the most amazing Thai restaurant I’ve ever experienced outside of Thailand.

From the service (excellent), to the flavor (authentic and exceptional), I consistently leave smiling.

For those of you that love heat (I.e. spicy food), I know you’ve probably struggled to find the heat you’re longing for in those Thai dishes you experienced in actual Thailand... Well, I can attest.

Yes, they have spicy levels traditional to American Thai places. The least spicy has no heat, and is extremely flavorful. But if you desire my favorite (ACTUAL THAI HOT!!!), you can request past the traditional 5 stars!!! -A 7 star level is what I got in Thailand requesting Thai hot...So hot, so flavorful, so satisfying (you spice fans know what I mean). The Kee Mao at a 7 is absolutely INCREDIBLE, and still so good at a level 1 for those that don’t like spicy dishes.

So, all I can say is if you are looking for some of the most authentic Thai in the USA, and happen to be on I-80 going through Rawlins, Wyoming, I highly recommend you take the slight detour into downtown Rawlins and eat at anong’s.

It’s worth the slight detour, and I’m sure you’ll be like me in saying “THIS amazing Thai is...