| Address | 11407 Amherst Ave., Wheaton, MD 20902 |
|---|---|
| Phone | (301) 942-0075 |
The food here is consistently good. I love the Pad Thai, the chicken satays, and the Eggplant with Black Bean Sauce. The service can sometimes be iffy. And recently one of the wait staff told me I could use my Discover credit card, which ended up not being true. Her English was poor.
In a neighborhood stocked with excellent Thai restaurants, Ruan Thai remains my favorite. Both Dusit Thai and Nava Thai are worthy restaurants with exceptional dishes of their own: Navas Floating Market Noodle Soup, for example. But Ruan Thai remains true to its hole-in-the-wall roots and offers a wide array of exceptional dishes, from its lemongrass soups to its curries and its noodles, all in the green-walled confines of its niche on Amherst Ave. When I ate there last, we ordered the vegetarian dumplings to offset the spiciness of the watercress with pork and shrimp, and were pleased by the range of tastes in the two dishes. The entrees were equally impressive: the chicken and flat rice noodles in chili sauce brought just enough heat to enhance the flavors, while the stir-fried pork belly in oyster sauce melded meat and fish in a tasty blend. A warning: seating is a scarce commodity in the narrow restaurant, and those seeking to partake of superior Thai cuisine without emptying their wallets will have to arrive early. There are no reservations at this Wheaton gem.
Ruan Thai has been well rated, particularly when compared to Maryland as opposed to Virginia Thai destinations. We were quite dissapointed on our recent (Sept. 2007) visit. The satay was nicely grilled, but lukewarm and clearly reheated, the crispy duck was salty and the meat was a bit tough. The Pad sea uw noodles were ok but over scorched. Most importantly the softshell crab was near rotten, overbreaded and all mushed up. its bad when the most expensive dish on the menu is the worst. We (the kids) did like the spring rolls and the grilled eggplant salad lived up to the reviews. All in all a slightly tired neighborhood place that needs focus. Don't bother unless you live nearby, and even then, there are better choices.
Excellent value for what you get. The food is authentic, homey and not at all pretentious. Parking can be difficult, but luckily street parking after 6 is free. The restaurant was near empty when I arrived at 6 on a Wednesday night, but by the time I left at 8 it was hopping and people were waiting for tables. Wait staff is gracious, if a little busy (only two servers for a full house).
Must try dishes: watercress salad app, pad thai.
A great place to have some Thai food. I will recommend this place to anyone. Good prices and great food! Not a very big place, simple = perfect. One of the best places to have Thai food.
Nothing fancy about this homey and efficient Thai restaurant, a refreshing alternative to the many spic-and-span chains and punned named places popping up everywhere these days. It serves up uncomplicated dishes with fresh ingredients. The standouts were the coconut soup--not the bland syrupy version too many Thai chains are serving up--the seafood dishes, which were fresh and punchy, and a cold smokey eggplant appetizer that balances out the slight heat (which could have been kicked up a notch on some of the dishes). The menu is large enough and the prices are cheap enough to experiment.
This restaurant can't be easily spotted if you are just driving by and looking for a good Thai Restaurant. It's one of my little favorite discoveries of Wheaton. This place doesn't seat much and the parking space is very limited. Inside you will find it's a simple place to relax and enjoy some of the best Thai food around. This is the place if you really want to taste some authentic Thai food.
The menu doesn't have any pictures and the daily Chef Specials can be found on a little white board that is fairly noticable. You can find yourself wanting to try many items off the menu and that's exactly what we did since the prices were fair.
For appetizers the Pork Satay was good, accompanied with a peanut sauce with vinegrette cucumbers both as dipping sauce.
The Tom Kha Gai was the best spiced up soup. It uses coconut milk for the base and has chicken along with other spices.
The Tom Yum Talay was a very good seafood appetizer. It has lime juices served with various seafood and vegetables.
There is an eggplant appetizer that is almost the same as the Larb but has smoked eggplant. This is good too.
For our main dished we had the catfish with green beans cooked in red curry sauce, excellent.
The Latna, flat noodles with pork served with Chinese broccoli smoothered with a Thai gravy sauce.
Thai style fried rice with chicken was very good, authentic.
Shrimp served with basil leaves and other spices/curry spices was excellent, good sized shrimps too.
Overall the food was excellent the service was decent since there were only 2 waitresses working. They can improve by offering bigger glasses of water instead of the small ones, if really busy you might have to wait a while till yours is refilled. Not a good idea if you are eating lots of spicy foods.
Overall I really like the place, its down to earth simple, good portions of food for the fair prices. I've recommended this place many times and taken visitors here too.
I found this amazing hole in the wall place after moving and being exhausted. I could have eaten almost anything, however I will be returning again and again. The food was wonderful and inexpensive.
We didn't have a long wait for the table, but they appeared to only have one waitress working the entire, full restaurant...so we had to wait a while to order and for the food. The food itself was worth the wait. I had a the green chicken curry. It was a little on the cocunutmilky side, but still yummy...and spicy enough to work up a sweat. I recommend this place...
