Montri Thai Fine Cuisine — Restaurant in Warrenville

My overall grade for Montri Thai Fine Cuisine is: C+

This restaurant is about 20 minutes from where I live, so it was a bit of a drive to get there. The original reason we switched from our "regular" Thai place was that our regular place no longer carries our favorite appetizer: Tod Mun (fish cakes) and Monti Thai does carry them, so we tried this place to see if it would become our new regular spot.

I do try different things on Thai menus as I try to expand my horizons, but invariably, we also order the very typical stuff: Tod Mun, Chicken Satay and Pad Thai (with tofu).

So this review is about those 3 items which we really use as a benchmark to see if we will return.

Let's start with the original reason: Tod Mun - this dish appears easy to make and a savory fish cake, not unlike crab cakes, but it's really a homogenous batter of fish and emulsifiers to keep it all together, that is fried and served with a sauce that is primarily vinegar tasting with some onions and peppers and other vegetables. Our family goes crazy for this - but it's becoming increasingly hard to find - not sure why.

The Tod Mun here tasted "old" and "rubbery" and was pretty small compared to the other Thai places we visit. I was sad to say that the 1st bite I took told me all I needed to know - we will probably not get a new regular place based on this. But I didn't give up.

Chicken Satay - super easy-to-love appetizer with a peanut sauce. This dish was actually ok. The peanut sauce was good and they provided a generous portion to dip your chicken into. Unfortunately, the chicken was overcooked and dry and also seemed to have been re-heated. No bueno.

Pad Thai - ok - this is the mainstay of many Thai restaurants. You have to have good pad Thai to stay in business, right? While the portion size was generous, the flavor was just "good". It was not bad, and unfortunately, not really good. Just average.

So, if you live close to Montri Thai and you want a quick Thai take out place - this place will do "just fine". But if you're looking for something that stands out from the others and is worth a 40-minute roundtrip, this is probably not the place for you. Especially, if you've enjoyed amazing Thai cuisine in the city which is way too far for us to drive on a regular basis.

For now, we will continue hunting for a new favorite and regular Thai restaurant, but we will not be returning here...

I arrived before my friend, and was greeted and seated right away. My friend arrived about 5 min after me. In those 5 min, the server only filled our water glasses, and didn’t introduce herself or offer to take my drink order. Even after my friend arrived, the server took an additional 5 min to come back. There were no other tables in the restaurant. After she took our drink orders, she came back with my drink a few minutes later, but she forgot my friend’s Diet Coke. She left too quickly for us to alert her of her error, so we had to wait to say something when she came back to take our food order.

My margarita came frozen, even though it didn’t mention that on the menu. It wasn’t fully blended though, so the chunks of ice made it hard to drink.

We ordered the spicy grilled beef and calamari tempura for apps. The spicy grilled beef was our favorite. The calamari was too rubbery and over battered for my taste.

I ordered the Tom Kha Gai soup. (The staple which I judge all Thai restaurants by.) The overall flavor was 3 out of 5, at best. It was 40% chopped bell peppers, 5% chicken, 5% lemongrass and kafir lime leaves/cilantro, and 50% broth/coconut milk. I’ve NEVER had Tom Kha WITHOUT MUSHROOMS!! 🤯

My friend ordered the 5 star chicken. I only had one bite, so I can’t fully rate it. It didn’t have much flavor for me though.

Finished with the Taro Pearls for dessert. Although the Taro was technically squares and not pearls, it was still delicious.

Overall, the prices were decent, but none of the food, drinks or service would make me want...

I went to Montri with a large group recently and the overall reviews from everyone were mixed. What I know is, whatever food I tried was good so I'm going to give Montri the benefit of the doubt here. Really the two major issues were that the service was really slow. We waited a LONG time just to get our appetizers like avocado rolls and soup. That was excessive, but again maybe the issue was the size of our group, 8 adults and 6 kids. The other issue my friends complained about was the sweetness of the food. Many entrees came out quite sweet, which wasn't ideal.

I tried a couple of things. First off, the avocado rolls were great. Almost like a Tex/Mex-Asian fusion thing going on. Really nice. On the other hand, the Tom Kha soup was... not what I expected. Not that it was bad, but it just didn't taste like the Tom Kha soup I have almost everywhere else. I'm all for unique flavors, but this just seemed like a whole different kind of soup. Really, the soup was my only complaint. The red curry was great and the Pad Kee Mao was good. I think we could and should have upped the spice levels on everything we ordered. Adding in the hot sauce provided the heat we needed.

I would recommend Montri. I would come back and give them another shot in terms of the service assuming part of the issues were just due to our group size. We'll hope for a better...