| rev:text
| - Things I liked about Sweet Mango: nice atmosphere (we were dining outside on a beautiful day), attentive and pleasant service, reasonably priced menu with the standard variety of Thai curries, noodle dishes, rolls, etc., and generous portions.
The one thing I didn't like, unfortunately, was the food. Three of us dining ordered pad thai w/tofu, country pad thai w/chicken, and massaman curry. The curry looked and smelled pretty good but unfortunately I didn't order that! My pad thai consisted of cooked noodles with a sauce, plain pan-fried tofu (not cooked in sauce), a dash of peanuts on the top, and the flower carrot and orange slice on the side. There was some residual evidence of egg white sticking to some of the noodles. No bean sprouts, no spring onions! The country pad thai was essentially the same with a darker sauce; I'm not sure if the chicken was cooked in the sauce. My dish overall lacked flavor and the tofu was overcooked and tasteless. It was extremely mediocre, even bad.
The complimentary wonton soup was a nice touch, but the lettuce in the soup had black specks on it-- not sure what was going on with that.
Also, I ordered a Thai iced tea which was really not very tasty at all. I don't often have Thai iced tea so it's possible that I just didn't know what I was getting into-- but I drink a lot of tea, including red tea, so I thought I'd enjoy this. The flavor seemed "off" and so bitter that I could barely drink it.
The positive reviews here on Yelp make me think that maybe we happened to visit at a bad time (it was a weekday at the beginning of lunchtime). It's unfortunate; there are a lot of nice things about this restaurant. But ultimately the point of going to a restaurant is to get a good meal, and a Thai place should be able to at the very least produce a better pad thai than I can make at home (which is a very low bar!). Based on my experience, I cannot recommend this restaurant.
|