Tara Thai

We have been at Tara Thai many times over the years. I a surprised to see a cumulative 2.5 star average. I think Tara Thai is better than that. When it first opened, the innovative beautiful interior was exciting, the location convenient, the food good. It still is.
We used Tara Thai to cater a party for 40 recently and the guests raved about the food. Tonight I got takeout (Pad Kaprow with tofu, and Panang Curry with tofu) and both were excellent.
Although not considered the very best of MoCo, it’s a strong choice for Thai food.

This place has always been a nit or miss. Lately, it is a lot more misses than hits. The fried rice I got was old and clumpy, and the chicken not fresh. Very disappointing. Last time, the shrimp they served was not cooked properly and had to be recooked to avoid poisoning. The taste has definitely gone down.

Décor: 3 Stars
Food: 2 Stars
Overall: 2.5 Stars
This type of Thai food was really popular about 15yrs. ago when Tara Thai was one of the only Thai restaurants in the area. Time and competition have caught up with this establishment. Sure the interior is nice, but so too was the interior of their Bethesda location before it closed. The signature mixed drinks are still good, however the food is purely Americanized with lots of sodium filled jarred sauces. Amy Chung’s frozen Thai from Costco is on point with Tara Thai.

We come here regularly and it has always been a fav. Kanoom jeeb is always delicious and the staff always friendly,

Whenever I look for quick thai, Tara Thai is where I go. Their Pad See Ew is by far the best thing I’ve had there. Their spring rolls are really good too!

Strongly not recommend
Extreme salty all dishes from appetizer, soup and entrees. The server no smile and no serviceGratuity 18% at less for lunch even 1 or 2 people

I sat at the bar with my friend and we were helped right away, we were the only customers at the bar.
We started off with the house salad. Was ok, nothing special the dressing was really good though and it came with taro chips on top, which was interesting.
We also got the Yum Woon Sen… this was not appetizing at all. The smell first of all was bad and it did not taste much better. Luckily we told the bartender and he understood and let us order something else instead.
We ordered the Pad See Eaw, this was much better. It had almost a sweet taste to it, like maple syrup, which was actually not bad with the contrasting saltiness. I would probably order it again.
Overall this place was ok but not somewhere I would choose to go again with other options close by.

Meh — the crispy chicken ka pow was mostly breading and the jasmine rice was insufficiently sticky. The spring roll was nothing special either.
Better off going further north to Benjarong if you want some good Thai times.
Also, the décor felt like being inside a 70’s era fishbowl.

I ordered delivery from GrubHub. It came quickly, and the man who delivered my food was polite. There was no delivery fee, but the minimum order for delivery was $ 20.
The beef green curry was insanely salty. The pineapple fried rice had a total of three small chunks of pineapple in the whole dish. I will say that neither dish skimped on the protein, which I appreciated. Portion sizes seemed pretty standard.
I would not order from here again.

Yuck. The server was a robotic rude mess. My food was bland and gross. I had to eat Cheetos after the meal to get the taste out of my mouth. My mother’s food was so bad (duck that tasted like it was out of a can… dog food?) she sent it back and the server was soooo rude after that. She changed her order to mussels and the server brought us a plate with four mussels on it. The bill was $ 38 and she CIRCLED a tip amount that she wanted on the receipt. Stay away. Stay far away. I wish I could give this place zero stars.

I went there for carry-​out just a few weeks ago. The wait was over an hour. Many people were seated and brought food before my fairly simple order. The chef came out and was argumentative with me when a manager gave other customers who waited free soup and apologies. I asked for a refund and they gave it to the wrong customer and gave me his card. I said it was the wrong card and gave it back. They showed me a phony receipt and said I was credited the money back but never got a refund. I am never going back, the place is falling off. There’s a lot of dust on the ceilings and the décor is dated. Once was a fan, but no more.

Never dined here, just gotten carry out. So I don’t have experience with the wait staff.
This might not be the most authentic Thai place but the food is good and my kids love it. We always order pad see ew with beef and it’s always devoured quickly! Noodles are soft and it comes with plenty of beef.
The pad thai is great, always plenty of peanuts on top. The curries are also good, as is the ginger perfect dish, drunken noodles, and something with cabbage and mushrooms (forget the name).

This place has gone downhill, big time. Extremely rude service. If you don’t know how to speak to customers in a cordial tone, you should not work in the service indusry. The food was subpar. Thai iced tea dos not taste good. Will not be dining here ever again.

Service was terrible. The sever was rude.
I simply did not want the sauce with my order, but he continued on stating that it must come with the sauce. I have eaten at different locations, and never had an issue with this request.
My friend and I ended up leaving.

Was seated and never saw a server other than the one who was working the tables directly diagonal. She and I made eye contact several times but I guess we weren’t in her section. After 8 min I «checked in «on Unilocal.I decided after more time passing that it was time to walk out.
I also noticed they have scrapped their multi page menu for a double sided laminated one much like I Hop.
No wonder the ratings are so low.
This place used to be great but all I can say is don’t waste your time

Usually went to Tara Thai for the Pad Thai. Not bad for that dish, but the service is lackluster. Was better several years ago.
Today tried to order on Eat24. After a hour and a half of waiting I called the place only to have them tell me that they hadn’t gotten the order. They then had me hold and said «got it» and then hung up. Called back to see whether it was on it’s way only to be told it hadn’t even been made yet. Canceled order. Can’t say that I’ll go back. This was the final straw.

It is just OK. It is solid. I dunno. I went once before and kind of hated it, but went back the other day and decided to go middle of the road.
We had the spring rolls, and they were solid. Nothing special.
I find that, compared to other Thai places I’ve been, their «spicy» scale is watered down. I had a 2 pepper rated dish and it wasn’t the least bit spicy. Maybe they saw «white American dude» and turned the heat down for me thinking I want that. Sigh.

Two words. Americanized Thai. If you want authentic Thai food this is definitely not the place to get it from. Despite the faux-​Thai food, the interior of Tara Thai is great. The colors and the décor give a great under-​the-​sea feel — which is probably the only authentic feel you will get.
You know an Asian restaurant is not authentic when the only Asians you see are the employees. The food is very much Americanized. The tasty, rich, complicated and delicious flavors that Thai dishes offer are replaced by salt, just a big lump-​some of salt.
We ordered the Heavenly Wings and the mussels for our appetizer. Sad to say, but the mussels were overcooked and the wings weren’t wings. THEY WERE DRUMSTICKS. The drumsticks or the wings were a little bland, but with the sauce that came with it gave the dish a better flavor. For the entrees we ordered Ka Pow and Deep Sea. The Deep Sea was too salty — it seemed like they were aiming for the actually sea water flavor and not the content — and I could not eat the curry without having to eat a spoonful of rice. It was that salty. The Ka Pow was salty as well and it wasn’t as spicy as they promised. When my bf ordered the dish the server said it was going to be really spicy — it was 3^rd level spicy on the menu — but when he tried it was only 1^st level spicy. He was quite disappointed but he still finished it.
Overall I would give all the stars to the interior design of the place and the service; none for the food. You can find cheaper Thai dishes for a much much better quality that actually have delicious and complicated flavors.

Maybe I am not the the champion of Americanized Thai food, but my most recent foray into Thai cuisine left me as forlorn as the child whose anticipation of her three scoops of ice cream in one swift motion ended all up on the floor. My grief is great for all the varieties of food that looks miles ahead of of it tastes. Deception was the name of the game.
While I am not a noodle person per se, the one thing that passed for acceptable was the pad thai my companion ordered. The «honey glazed» duck was no such thing and I wonder what state of mind the chef may have been in when pairing the meat with the sauce or even offering up drowned watercress as an acceptable presentation. It seemed more akin to an episode of CHOPPED where the chef is struggling to pair disparate food items harmoniously and somehow not quite landing it.
My duck slices came with watercress, and this is a poor choice, should you choose to brave the waters of the duck meat. The only way I could choke down the meal was with the sticky rice that was more appropriate for for a store-​brand sushi plate. Do yourself a favour and do not order this dish. Stick with their more «traditional» (in the americanized sense) meal options. Curry in this case will be your friend to drown out the blanched tasteless vegetables that lie wilted and pathetic in a sauce so frightfully thin its a wonder it covers the meager portion size — excluding the rice.
Bland. The food all around was bland and I was shocked when the final sticker price came for a meal that left half the dining party sorely disappointed.
The one thing that was actually nice was the satay skewers that we ordered as an appetizer, but even there I have had much better prepared meats and peanut sauces. The hybrid chicken-​pork-​fish «drumstick» combo was more akin to a lightly fried shrimp dumpling because by the time I bit into the fried, it had gone soggy.
If you’re looking for a good Thai experience, this is not the place to go, even though the charming underwater décor make it a perfect place for an intimate date night. (Location of the venue notwithstanding).

When people go out to eat Thai, bland is not really an adjective they want to use for their meal. Somehow, Tara Thai manages to be one of the blandest restaurants I’ve encountered in the area. I’d say it’s probably at Silver Diner level bland if not blander. With so many local, family owned Thai restaurants in the area that care about flavor and authenticity, without negating their own cuisine (a description read «tastes better than it sounds», really?) this should probably be the second to last place to look for Thai food, with the last being a Chinese restaurant with pad thai on the menu.
When I try restaurants for the first time I try the most «standard» offering because of they can’t get the most popular dish right, they’re probably not doing anything else right. I ordered chicken pad thai which was bland as bland could be– the only discernible flavor was sweet. I know that asian restaurants pride themselves on incorporating sweetness into savory entrees but it was like the kitchen received some memo that said that the challenge of the day was only using sugar to season food. The calamari, which you would expect to be a bit salty because it’s deep fried, tasted like it was not even remotely seasoned (so like a rubber band essentially) and served with syrupy sweet chili sauce which, again, had no prominent flavor other than sweet.
The only reason why I even went was because they have a dedicated cocktail menu which is a rarity in Montgomery County. A few of the other Thai places have a full bar as well, but they don’t have a cocktail menu and if you do order a drink, it’s your waitress/​waiter guestimating what to put in it. At the price we pay for booze in this neck of the woods, it’s totally not worth it. I believe I ordered a Singapore sling or some type of punch and it was pretty standard– not amazing but not bad, it went down well and warranted the second star.
Overall, I’d skip dinner here but I’ll probably continue to hit it up for drinks.