Bangkok Garden Restaurant

This was a real surprise. Four of us praised the food and the drinks. I had the catfish, it was very spicy and very good. The cocktails were great value – excellent martinis and mojitos at a very low price. I love Ruan Thai and was surprised that the food at Bankok Garden seemed just as good. Parking is no problem at the garage 50 ft away. Will definitely return.

My Thai family and I have been coming here for the past 15 years. The restaurant is family-​owned with the most authentic Thai food in the DMV area. I highly recommend pad ka na moo krub, Kai Jaew Moo Sup (fried omelet), and crabmeat fried rice. For appetizer, try kanom jeeb and moo yang with sticky rice.

I come here sometimes 2 – 3 times a week and I always feel so shameful of it because I love it so much. One of the few places to get boat noodle market soup. So good. The pork belly special is pretty delicious too!

Love this place. Even when they were having a massive private party, my family’s takeout order still only took about 30 minutes! The food was delicious, as always. Our favorites:
— shrimp and/​or chicken pad thai
— tom kha kai (coconut milk soup with chicken)
— pineapple & shrimp fried rice
I pretty much get these every time I come here. Because, well, pad thai. DUH. Also love the Moo Yang (pork skewer with sticky rice and a sweet spicy sauce). They’re not kidding about the spicy part! Panang curry is great no matter what meat you get in it. I’ve bought groupon/​living social deals for here in multiples because it is so dang good!

This place was pretty good. It’s a nice quite place to take your girlfriend out on a date. The prices aren’t bad either. The parking sucks but most places around here aren’t any better with the parking

So we see a cop on the corner in front of the restaurant. Then another one on the opposite corner. So am anxious to see if there’s been an incident, if the street is blocked off, or maybe it looks like the President is in the area-​although not sure there is one place in Bethesda to attract a dignitary-(Faryab is a bit unique). So I scoot across the street to ask the officer if everything is all right– I wasn’t even sure we could get into B Garden. He says here are two $ 50 tickets for jaywalking– one for each of us. And people wonder why police are not respected? Of course Bethesda is a place that within seconds will be ticketed. So we go in for the pad Thai and it seemed flat. Potstickers and crab stuffed chicken were good– we got some appetizers/​didn’t love the Thai spring rolls. Really a pretty decent place, I was just grumpy about the tickets and how much the people who govern Montgomery county would have fit into Moscow during the reign of Brezhnev.
Will go back when in better mood.

We came here for late lunch. It’s spacious inside. Had pad tai, drunken noodle and crispy pork belly, which was listed on the wall as special. Pad tai was not as sweet as others we tried in local, drunk noodle was also very tasty. The discovery of this crippling pork belly really made my day. It’s full of flavor, aroma and texture. We really liked it. Our appetizer was spring roll, which was not memorable though. Our beverage virgin piña colada and Thai iced tea were also amazing.

Put me on hold for over 10 minutes. I just hung up and didn’t bother ordering

Service was friendly but food did not meet expectations. Also whatever fragrance they used in there was so strong it almost overwhelmed the taste of the food.

The guy that pick up the phone for my delivery order is very rude to me. When i tried to repeat my order and just wanna make sure that it will be spicy. He make his sound like sigh after i told him about my food. That’s very rude to do with the customer!!! I did ask him very nicely and i did disappointed with him. He is Thai guy but its not the owner for sure. I went to eat there so many times and i have no problem with anything until this time for my first time delivery ordered.
I am not happy at all.

We like Thai foods very much. So we have been to many different Thai restaurants all over the US. We loved different places in SF because Tara Tai had been the best Thai restaurant in Washington area. We live in Bethesda for 4 years and had not known Bankok garden until today. I passed by a lot but never thought I wanted to go in. It did not look appealing to me. But I was always curious. I saw the living social and bought one for this restaurant.
It was a big surprise for my husband and me how good everything was. Crispy duck, drunken nudel, pannang curry. They were delicious and better than anywhere else. They are very spicy. If you don’t like spicy food, you should order non spicy one. I usually don’t like too spicy food but they are delicious.

Spicy or not spicy? It’s pretty spicy. I was talking to this girl about who had the better spice tolerance and she recommended we try this place out. I know the Thai can handle their spicy. I’m cantonese and I prefer mild but flavorful foods. Handling spicy foods is not my forte.
Regardless, this place is smack dab in the middle of downtown Bethesda and looks kinda dingy from the outside. Walking inside, it’s pretty well kept and the service staff is super friendly. Maybe a little too friendly. When we sat down, we were bombarded with what the order and after saying we needed more time to look, the waiter just stood there like he didn’t understand me. I mean, poor guy, I think he just didn’t understand that we needed more time to look at the menu. He was really good at filling up our waters though, which is a plus since I was guzzling it down due to the spicy food.
I got the Pad See Ew which is essentially Beef Chow Fun for the chinese. I got it hot. She ordered the Green curry (Thai Hot)! Let me explain to you the level of spicyness. So there is Mild (weak), Hot (pretty spicy), and Thai Hot (prepare to enter hell). When we got our food, I tasted my dish and although it was pretty dope, it was super spicy. I immediately went for the water and drank the entire glass. When she got hers, she was eating it like a champ, barely touching the water. When I tried a little bit of her curry, I tapped out.
Spicy food: 1
Me: 0
I would definitely recommend this place if you’re looking for some good thai. I wouldn’t say it’s the best thai around but it’ll give you that satisfying fix.

Stop looking for a restaurant to eat at, right now. Cause you’ve found it.
I love the calamari, one of the best in the city, you need to order it! It is cooked with flash-​fried basil and crispy fried garlic. I will come out of Virginia, just to eat this dish.
I love the mixed drinks, so cheap, you need to order them! We ordered the flaming volcano cocktail, which they light on fire when they serve it to you. I suggest to take a pic, then blow out the flame asap, in order to preserve the shot of bacardi 151 that they pour in the drink to set it on fire. This helps you get more bang (alcohol) for your buck!
But that is about all~ the red curry was just OK. I will come back to try some of their noodle dishes.
Also, I wish the restaurant could be a little cleaner, I just remember the smell of wet rag when I came in. I tried very hard to get attenuated to the smell so I can concentrate on the food. Service was great!

This place has pretty good Thai food. Compared to any other Thai I’ve had, best Thai in the area! I ordered:
Summer rolls: Shrimp was small so I barely tasted the shrimp. Peanut sauce was on the sweeter side than the usual that I kind that I had in mind.
Dumplings: really tiny and expensive for only getting TWO baby steamed dumplings…
Meegrob: crispy little noodles but way too sweet for me. Had to stop eating after third bite and order something else.
Shrimp pad Thai: the sauce was the right amount, not overly used and not under used. The noodles were soft and evenly mixed sauce throughout. The shrimp was cooked just right and not tough/​overcooked but I only found FOUR little shrimp in the entire plate. I was basically just eating sprouts and noodles most of the time.
Mango sticky rice: perfect. Not too sweet, rice was soft and not dry. Mangos were sweet. I wish they gave more sticky rice!
The service is okay. But the Thai food is better than anywhere else in the area imo.

Came in for lunch. Lunch portion was suitable perhaps for hamsters recovering from major veterinary surgery. Chicken and Broccoli had maybe 1 ounce of chicken. When I pointed this out they said «that’s the lunch portion, take it or leave it.» Perhaps there was a language barrier.
On a block with six or seven restaurants, there is no reason to dine at this monument to minimalism.
What little food there was served was average Thai.
Skip.

I sure wish this place was closer to my house, I would be an ultra-​regular customer. Parking down in this area of Bethesda kind of sucks if you’re not familiar with it, there is some street parking (good luck!) or a couple of garages nearby that charge about $ 5 for evening parking.
The restaurant is an older building but clean and the service was very fast (with a tired 4 year old in tow, I really appreciated this). The food was delicious and I am so sad that the 3 Thai places I have tried recently nearer to my house aren’t nearly this good. Dumplings were delicious, the pineapple fried rice was a festival of shrimp, pork and other delicious things all served up in a big pile. The garlic and white pepper chicken was fresh and delicious with perfect broccoli along side it. My daughter loved the dumplings and fried rice. Unfortunately they said the mangoes were not ripe for mango sticky rice but they offered just sticky rice (my daughter’s favorite part) so we got that and she snarfed the whole plate down. We also shared green tea ice cream (order comes with 2 scoops) and it was delicious too. They also offer a full bar for those that want it.

Boat noodle soup is flavorless. My Thai aunt ordered stuff off a specific Thai menu. We ordered two types of papaya salad, woosen salad, pad Thai, crispy calamari, Chinese broccoli and pork, duck curry and maybe another dish. I really liked the papaya salad with salted crab and duck curry. My aunt really likes this place but I just thought it was okay. I’ll have to come back and try more items.

The most authentic Thai restaurant in DMV. I grew up in Bangkok and I am delighted to find food that tasted exactly like what I had in my hometown. Also, I am impressed by their authentic & uncompromising Thainess. They refuse to serve Americanized Thai cuisine (adding snow pea, broccoli, carrot to curry is probably the most unauthentic they do). I find it ironic that people complain about the food served here are not authentic when comparing with other Thai restaurants (don’t want to mention names here) that taste nothing like Thai food. It got me thinking that authentic cuisine can be an acquired taste to some.
Anyway, here were what I ordered:
— Crispy whole fish with hot chili and garlic sauce: a huge plate of fish. Extra crispy on the outside and soft on the inside. The sauce was sweet, sour, salty & spicy and packed with strong flavor from garlic, basil, hot chili, and other spices. This dish was actually better than what I sometimes had in Bangkok. It took a lot of skills to make a perfect combination of flavor but they nailed it. Something to know beforehand is that the fish is market price, so you should ask your server before placing an order and it takes 15 – 20 mins for preparation.
— Spicy fried catfish salad: such a rare item to find. They have it on the Thai menu and I don’t even know if you can find it in the English version. If you want to be adventurous, you can ask your server to translate and order something that you think you will like. Anyway, the catfish meat was minced and then deep-​fried, so it’s very different from what you would imagine fried fish should be. It was served with sweet & sour light dressing on the side.
— Papaya salad (som tum): crunchy green papaya mixed with delicious sauce. The flavor profile was spot on. Sweet, sour, salty, garlicky, hot & spicy.
— Stir-​fried stink beans: this one was also on Thai menu. Another rare item that I didn’t expect to find it here. Stink beans (or bitter beans) had a very unique smelly flavor that could make your breath and urine smell funny afterward. The beans tasted like an earthy asparagus combined with a hint of roasted nut. It came with minced pork in spicy brown sauce. It was an acquired taste and you may not find it appealing at first. But, if you want to be adventurous, go for it.

I first tried this restaurant years ago, and I loved the food, but the space desperately needed a facelift. It was renovated fairly recently and now the interior is clean and comfortable, and the food is as good as ever. We shared the appetizer sampler, green curry with chicken, and drunken noodles with chicken. The appetizer platter came with a lot of food, all of which was fried, with the exception of the dumplings. Everything was good, but I think I like tom kha soup and satay better than anything on the sampler plate. I loved both the green curry and the drunken noodles. Sometimes drunken noodles can be mushy and greasy and these were not at all. The dish was also as spicy as it promised to be, which is rare. I will definitely be back to Bangkok Garden again and look forward to sampling more from their menu.

Ordered takeout from here late in the afternoon. Their web menu isn’t the best but I was still able to get what I wanted. Since it was my first time ordering from Bangkok Garden i got an appetizer and a main dish (too much food, but I’ll have lunch tomorrow). For my appetizer I had the pork and shrimp dumplings (kanom jeeb) which were seasoned well and steamed perfectly. The dipping sauce was a bit too sweet for my taste, but it was a nice compliment to the seasoning of the dumplings.
For my main dish I ordered the pork with basil and chiles. I emphasized that I wanted it spicy and it did not disappoint. Next time I’ll request ground pork as I think that will absorb the flavors of the sauce better than the sliced pork that it my dish contained.
Based on the two things I ordered, I’ll go back. Next time I’ll eat there instead of doing takeout so that I can check out the service as well as the food. Solid option for Thai in the Bethesda area.