Friday, March 18, 2011

Bangkok House Thai Restaurant

After much cajoling, prodding and suggesting, I went to Bangkok House.  I don't know why I don't listen to y'all more often.  You're almost always right.


Bangkok is a Thai restaurant on Cherry, near the Joint Reserve Base and its run by a family - the entire family.  The lunch crowd seems to fill up with reserve base folks and people that work in the oddly placed towers on the West Freeway.  It should be filled with everybody in town because not only is the food great, but the family members are fantastic hosts.  If they sat with you, you'd feel like you were at their house.

On weekdays at lunch, Bangkok House has a lunch buffet and specials.  The specials include a trip to the buffet for salad, egg rolls and dessert.  The buffet has a number of staples but a few changes are made each day.  From my limited knowledge of everything, the buffet appeared to be a mix of Thai favorites, a few American-Chinese sounding dishes (beef & broccoli), and some really unusual items.  The most unusual item was something called "brown egg" which doesn't come from the chicken's tail end.  Instead, it is stewed/marinated/cooked/something in a brown broth.  It was probably good but I didn't get the buffet.

I got the pad thai.  I ordered it Dyanmo-Super-PaintPeeling-Thai-Spicy.  Which is like 3 out of 5 on their spicy ranking chart.  It was awesome.  Their pad thai seems more traditional than many places and very simple.  Yet very delicious.  It reminded me of the pad thai I had at Sikhay which has always been my idea of a very traditional pad thai. It consisted of chicken, noodles, sauce, some peanuts and very little else.  But it was enough to make me want to make you want to go eat it.  My waitress said that her grandma made the pad thai special for me since it was my first time.  I don't know what to think about that - but I'd always tell them its your first time. 

I never found the purported salad bar that came with the lunch special, but I did manage to find the eggrolls (good), rice (good) and some black rice on the dessert bar (awesome).  But there is an additional benefit to being a micro-celebrity.  They let me try anything on the buffet to see if I like it.  So I had the massaman curry.  Based on my sample of a small bowl with a little rice and some massaman curry on top, I can wholeheartedly endorse this dish.  The stamp of approval would have more bearing if I posted more than once every Superbowl, but you can still rely on that.  Also, I think everybody gets to try stuff on the buffet, but don't hold me to that.

Beyond the food though, you need to go for the atmosphere and the friendly nature of the people.  Places like this are why I started this blog and why I generally eat at these places.  The young waitress was the daughter who appeared very proud of the restaurant and its well worn reputation. Her mother was similarly proud and went on and on about each dish and how they make it.  The place isn't stuffy and its not awkward to have a conversation - whether loud or soft - because the family is always having a good time talking.  And the food is great. 

If you go, take cash and you get a 10% discount.  If you don't take cash - you're a sucker. 

Bangkok Thai House is at 438 S. Cherry Lane.

Let me know what you think.

Bangkok House on Urbanspoon

21 comments:

Umar Nadeem said...

nice blog with nice contents i like it your work is good keep it up man

Urdu poetry

Hayden said...

Ate there last night on the suggestion. It was great, thanks!

FortWorthHoleInTheWall said...

Hayden, what did you get? And did they have the buffet at night?

Thanks for reading

greg said...

i work nearby, i'll try and check it out tomorrow for lunch. good to see you back, ive been starving for the past few months without your direction.

greg (from earlier) said...

just ate there off your suggestion. your description of the atmosphere was spot on. i had the buffet and was honestly quite disappointed. I managed to fill up 3 plates of different dishes just to try everything and I can only recommend eating the pepper steak (but i like pepper steak and that's hard to screw up). They had a curry and tofu pad thai and some other interesting looking things on there which weren't that good IMO. The beef and broccoli was barely palatable. The egg rolls were not that good either. Maybe it was an off day but with so many misses, I don't think I'll be coming back. I have enjoyed your other Thai recommendations such as Junsuree and Thai Rice and Noodle.

FortWorthHoleInTheWall said...

Greg from earlier, sorry you had such a bad experience. Like I mentioned, the few things I had were good. You should have had the grandma make you a special pad thai.

Thanks for reading. Let me know if you've got any places you really like for Thai. I'm always up for a new place.

Anonymous said...

I have been going there since I started at Lockheed Martin 4 years ago. One of my fav small little places in FW. Mama will always make sure you are taken care of.

I have to admit though, for the best thai in town you can't beat the junsuree thai house!

Ashley said...

I love that place! I have had the lunch buffet, but it's been a while so I don't remember specifics. I also tried the Tom Kha Gai and love it!

FortWorthHoleInTheWall said...

What is Tom Kha Gai? It sounds like the punchline to a joke.

Thanks for reading.

Meghan said...

The other thing that's pretty great about Bangkok House is that they make their own Thai tea, from scratch. "Mama" will go into great detail to explain how they do it, and how it's different (and better) than the processed stuff at most places. I love, love, love this restaurant.

Anonymous said...

I went there last week and arrived one hour before the buffet was scheduled to end. There was very little left on the buffet so I put a few things on my plate to kill some time until they replenished the food.

They never did. I really wanted a better selection so I asked if they planned to add more food to the buffet. I was asked what I wanted so not wanting to appear greedy I just pointed to the two empty curry trays. About ten minutes later a small portion was added to one of the curry trays and I was told "here it is, special for you". There was maybe a teaspoon of meat in it. I won't be back.

FortWorthHoleInTheWall said...

Anonymous, that sucks. Sorry about that. Like I said, my trip was filled with unicorns and magic. Maybe I was lucky.

Thanks for reading.

Unknown said...

FWHITW, we didn't get too adventurous. Summer rolls. Pad thai. It was really good. I also liked the black rice dessert. Mama was a really cool character.

FortWorthHoleInTheWall said...

Alison, I think most people would consider the black rice pretty adventurous. Especially as it sits in its lonely bowl off to the side, looking all ghoulish and slimy.

How were the summer rolls?

Hayden AKA Alison said...

FWHITW, it was pretty ghoulish and slimy, but in a good way. Sweet and tasty. The summer rolls were pretty good -- they don't have any kind of meat and are very lettucy. I like them a little better with shrimp inside, but with the nice peanut sauce, it was "all good."

embeebee said...

We've gone twice now and have not been disappointed. I've tried the Tom Kha soup (coconut milk, ginger, lemon grass, bay leaves, mushrooms, tofu, side of rice...awesome!) and the Ruam Mit (mixed veggies stir-fried in special Thai sauce). Both were very good and are staples that I tend to order at all Thai restaurants. These dishes definitely stacked up. In fact, the Tom Kha was better here than the one served at Sweet Basil. Boyfriend got Masaman Curry and Red Curry and loved them both.

For us, the atmosphere heavily influences our opinions. I formerly enjoyed Thai Tina's, but after they moved downtown, the service went to heck, and I refuse to spend my money there. But we will DEFINTELY be going back to Bangkok House! We weren't certain of the hotness we wanted on our dishes so Mama brought us packets of different kinds of hot sauce and a small container of her special "dragon dust" so we could flavor as much as we wanted. You just don't get that everywhere. Go Mama! Rock that shower cap!

OSOS KAHLA said...

Good blog..nice artical publishing by you...appreciate on you...thanks for giving detail..

Urdu Website

roofing fort worth tx said...

I found your website perfect for my needs. It contains wonderful and helpful posts. I have read most of them and learned a lot from them. You are doing some great work. Thank you for making such a nice website.

Birthday gift Pakistan said...

That's a great attitude, I hope the incoming comments and suggestions are equally positive. I know I've said it in person, but for anyone reading the comments, its awesome!

gift for valentine's day for her in pakistan said...

A real informative blog like this is an exceptionally cool helping resource for a needy information seeker like me! Thanks a lot...

Anonymous said...

Thanks for sharing your great ideas with us through this site.how to write essay