Chontong Thai Cuisine — Restaurant in SeaTac

My wife and I have been coming in here off and on over the last year or so. Service has been hit and miss. Food portions seem to vary and according to the cook according to the owner.

The owner is a real piece of work himself. Almost a year ago he sent me a friend request on Facebook, presumably because we had "pinned" ourselves as being there for dinner one time. On one occasion I had posted a picture of the difference in the size of portion of the Jalea which was quite smaller than when we were there a couple months prior. He was quite upset about this, and sent me PMs to take it off his Facebook page. I just thought he as a owner should know what was going on in terms of what was being served, as I had never seen him in the establishment but it was a huge disappointment for us. He said it all depended on the cook working, but if we had any issues to send him a PM and he'd call the store to give us a discount.

All during this time, he kept "tagging" me on Facebook for all the weekend parties he had at Thai Chifa. I finally unfriended Thai Chifa.

We cametonight to try the Ceviche and Jalea. We were the first customer in the store, but the waitress waited on another couple that came in after we did first. We just shrugged it off. Again we asked that the Jalea which is a hot dish not be brought out until after the ceviche was finished so not as to get cold. So about 1/4 finished with the Ceviche out comes the Jalea.

My wife suggested I send a PM to the owner and remind him about the discount he offered. He responded by saying he was going to call and talk to the workers. The phone rang and some jibberish in Spanish could be heard in the kitchen. After a little while the owner Rolando came in and approached our booth.

Basically he said he didn't like that I had PM'd him complaining about the food, and that if we didn't like the food or service we should just not come. I reminded him that he was the one who sent me the friend request and asked that if there was a problem to PM him. He kept going from speaking to English with me and shouting in Spanish to my wife. He said he didn't like hearing about all the bad things about his place. I said I was just doing as he requested, but as an owner I would think he would want to know what bad service was being provided and what the customers think about the food. He said I had made many complaints with him and he was tired of it, that there were 4 Peruvian restruants in Seattle.

I asked him if he was telling us to get out, and not come back. At first he said no, but continue to grumble in Spanish about sending him PMs, I again reminded him that he sent the friend request and specifically stated not to post anything but send PM. I also reminded him that he kept tagging me and 100s of other customers for his parties and I was tired of it.

He continued to shout vulgarities at my wife in Spanish and pointed to a sign that said in English "We refuse the right to serve anyone." He then tells me that he spent over 100,000 dollars out of his own pocket to start up this place and didn't really care what people thought about his food or service. He said that we were giving his wife a difficult time. How I don't know because I'm not even how she was involved, as we never talked to her, or seen her at all. I said as someone who invested so much into a business, I would think he'd want to know if there was something that was making an negative impact on it's success. He basically shouted some more vulgarities to my wife and walked out.

The waitress came over and tried to apologize for his behavior, and said she had never seen him like that before. I still can't believe that some one who owns a business would not try to correct a problem than bury his head in the sand and say, I don't care what you think. With an attitude like that, he will not succeed. I see that more people have been giving negative reviews over the last year, so evidently he doesn't care. I guess he's got money to throw away so he can have his own party place on...

Location: Right by the Airport car rental place on Pacific Highway. They have their own reserved parking spots for restaurant customers only. Location seemed very clean inside when we arrived in the first hour of opening on a Saturday.

Service was warm and friendly and they offered to refill our drinks several times and us 3 ladies trying to catch up with each other (one was from out of town) didn’t feel hurried at all.

Food was a hit and miss for us. I love papaya salads but this Papaya salad did not taste fresh. I feel bad saying it because the elderly ladies serving us were so nice. The papaya salad and veggies were harder instead of crispier. The sauce was also a big problem like it was a mix that wasn’t made fresh or from a couple nights before. It had a more fishy taste than usual with a sour taste, almost tasting spoiled. All of us took one scoop on our plates and didn’t go back for seconds.

The calamari appetizer on the other hand is a must order! It was hot, fresh and the texture had the most perfect chew. The dipping sauce tasted like is a regular bottled sweet chili sauce, but I feel they can improve and find a more creative pairing for it.

Kee Mao Noodles was too sweet for me and oily and not enough veggies. This is another dish I usually get at Thai restaurants. The portion is also smaller than other places. I would not order again.

Dungeness crab fried rice was delicious and one of the favorites. They put the crab on top of the rice and you can decide to mix it all together first.

MSG - I believe they use MSG at this place because after 20’min or so my chest started hurting/tightening and my allergy symptoms started showing. I usually get this at some Chinese places when they put quite a bit of MSG. I believe it was in the crab fried rice. I could be wrong on where they placed it. But I strongly believe there was a bunch of MSG somewhere due to my reaction.

Conclusion: Great attentive and friendly service and easy location to meet up with friends near the airport. Hit or miss on food. Personally I wouldn’t travel out of my way to dine here as I know better Thai restaurants that does my favorite Thai dishes better. But if u find your go to dishes here, you...

I stopped by this place as it was close to the car rentals at SeaTac and was one of the higher rated places in the area. But, my dining experience was weird. We walked in around lunchtime, and it was mostly empty except a couple of other tables. The server came in immediately to ask us what we wanted, we told her that we would need a minute to check the menu. She just walked away hearing that seemingly pissed off. We decided what we wanted soon enough, but saw that she went inside the kitchen and nowhere to be seen for a while. We were fine with a bit of waiting, so we didn't mind at this point. Meanwhile, there were some other customers who came in for takeout and the server came out and started chatting with them. They seemed like regular customers but they kept chatting away for a long time. We tried to get the attention of our server many times, but she just ignored us even after literally looking at us. After 15 minutes ot so, it was clear that it was deliberate. We contemplated just walking away because we were not sure what's up. She finally showed up about 40 mins after we sat down to take our order. Meanwhile, she didn't give us any water or anything. She seemed very jolly chatting with the other customers, but totally neglected us for some reason. The only interaction we had before this was when we asked for a minute to check the menu, that's it.

No reason for a local restaurant to take this much time to just take the order when there are very few customers around. Food ranged from terrible to quite good. Chicken satay was dry, rubbery and probably 2 days old. Pad thai was decent. Mango sticky rice was quite good actually. But, the weird service...