Bai Tong Thai Restaurant — Restaurant in Tukwila

My wife and I arrived as they were opening at noon on Easter Sunday, 2023. The place immediately filled up and the tables continued to be filled with new arrivals even as we were leaving, a second seating. Popular! A real demographic mix!

We ordered the chicken wrap as a starter and then ordered Pineapple Prawn Curry, Beef Pad Sie-Lew, Golden Egg Calamari, Papaya Salad, Angry Ocean. I swear it seemed like every dish was there in ten minutes! They were miraculously quick!

The starter was like a wad of dark chicken meat (the most flavorful) cooked in the pandani leaves under the broiler. I'm sorry that I can't identify the thin brown sauce, because it was delicious and it made the dish. It was sweet and unique.

There were plenty of prawns and pineapple in the runny yellow curry sauce. One star was plenty hot for us. We used the noodles in the beef pad sie-lew to "put out the fire" of the chili on the palate. This curry may have been my favorite dish. Plenty of beef in the pad sie-lew, maybe a little dry, but not tough. It was tasty!

The calamari was tender and delicious. Again, the sauce made it special. I much prefer this to the traditional deep-fried calamari appetizer.

Based on a coworker's recommendation, my wife ordered the papaya salad, lots of shredded green papaya with bean sprouts, prawns, tomatoes, chili, etc. It was refreshing, but a bit chewy for my taste. I readily confess that I don't know my way around Thai food, so am maybe not a good judge.

Boy, the Angry Ocean seafood medley was delicious! I asked whether the ribbed morsels are cuttlefish and my wife said "Yes, they are all varieties of squid." We each had one mussel. I could have eaten a bowl of them! Fresh and tasty, not tough. I will go back for this dish.

Now we are enjoying the leftovers at home. It is a pleasure to recommend the quality of service that we experienced. Like Din Tai Fung, Bait Tong Thai employs and ARMY of attendant servers. Our water glasses must have been topped off ten times.

We got lucky and parked right in front of the restaurant. There are acres of free parking in the adjacent lots. The atmosphere inside was very colorful; the restrooms were...

I've been coming to Baitong Thai Restaurant for a while now with my family, and we've usually enjoyed our meals here. But unfortunately, this recent visit was disappointing and frustrating.

We placed our order with a lady server. I ordered a small Tom Yum soup, which came out in about 10 minutes—not bad. We finished the soup and then waited another 20 minutes for the fried rice to arrive. That felt a little long, but we were still okay at that point.

The real issue began after that. We were still waiting for our Pad Thai, and no one came by to check on us. We had already finished the fried rice and were getting hungrier. At one point, a lady server came by and asked if we were done eating so she could clear the table. I told her I was still working on it because we were still waiting on the Pad Thai.

Feeling frustrated, I flagged down another waiter—a male server—and told him we were still waiting on the Pad Thai and that we also wanted to place an order for a fourth dish, Pad Sei-Pew. He asked us want eat here or togo but He didn’t confirm the Pad Thai or say anything—just went to the screen and looked at something. Then after 10 more minutes, he came back smiling and said, “You still have a Pad Thai almost coming out.” No apology, no explanation for the long delay.

What really bothered us was that the table right in front of us—just two people who ordered after us—got all their food at once, including their Pad Thai.

Eventually, our Pad Sei- Pew came out after another 7 minutes. Sadly, it was so smoky and bitter I couldn’t eat it. My wife asked to take it to go, but honestly, it was a letdown.

We’ve been loyal customers here for a long time, but this visit was far from the usual standard. The service was slow and uncoordinated, communication was lacking, and the food wasn’t up to par. I hope this was just an off night, but it really left a...

I really wanted to love this restaurant it came highly recommended and the design is stunning - but I won't be going back and here's why, in ascenting order.

The wait was ridiculous. I don't mean the 20 minutes to be seated, that was OK. I mean it took over 30 minutes before anyone stopped to take our orders. Over 30 minutes later my friend got her tea. 30 minutes after that the appetiers arrived. 30 minutes later the food. No one ever stopped to ask us how we were doing, I had to get up and get my own flatware. I got my beer with the entree. They didn't have to go make the beer!

The food is terrible. They had to work pretty hard to screw this up as bad as they did considering that it's all cooked to perfection, but they managed. Everything we received was sickningly sweet with no other flavor. At first it was ok, but about halfway through the meal it got very cloying. We had a chicken appetizer with a very sweet sauce, that was OK. Then my Tom Ka arrived and I have never tasted anyting like it. This soup is known for its aeromatic spiciness. You could tell from looking at it that they didn't add any spice at all - and I asked for medium spicy! It tasted like sugar. My friend's chicken entree was the same, very bland and very sweet. The mango tea was also unusually sweet. Honestly I have never experienced anything like this before. I can't imagine what happened in the kitchen or why they actually served this food.

I would have complained but it's not like anyone stopped by to check on us anyway, and after an entire evening sitting here I just wanted to go home. Really I should not have had to complain about this, though. Food prices are inflated around here, I have a real issue with paying so much for...