Tarin Thai Cuisine

Not the easiest place to spot. It’s location may not be ideal but our dinner was great. Stopped in on a weekday night, a quarter of the tables full. Service was prompt. Prices were decent. Food was fresh. Spices were kicking! We will be back.

***BUFFET REVIEW***
I like the variety of items they have for their lunch buffet. It’s much more than Bangkok Golden
but it’s also much more expensive.
That said, I think you’re better off just buying one entrée item — it will be more than enough to fill you up and cost much less as well. I myself, would probably not go back here for the buffet. But I also haven’t ordered off their menu, so I will leave a 3 Star rating for now.

We give them 4 stars based on the same dish that we always get everywhere, i.e., Panang Curry Chicken — we love the sauce and the dish — OMG, yummy. Not too wild about the spring rolls or any of the other dishes. Love the Thai iced team except that ¾ of the glass is filled with ice — give me a break. So, if you love Panang Curry, this is the place to go in Herndon, Reston, or Vienna.

I’m you typical fat guy that love his buffets. I thought I’ve seen them all: Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Indian, American, Italian, and now what’s this? A Thai buffet. Now this I have to try? Can I actually stuff myself with all you can eat Pad Thai, crispy spring rolls, curry, and duck? Well we’ll find out.
I honestly did now this place was here. I was going through the Bank of America drive through when I saw this place. I called a friend and asked if he wanted to go. He said sure and off we went. We walked in around noon and there were not too many people there. About 10 minutes later the crowds started to pour in. Well we both went for the buffet instead of ordering off the menu. There were two hot cars with foods ranging from veggie pad thai, crispy spring rolls, duck, curries, some marinated deep fried beef, chicken, veggies, and some other spicy things.
I loaded my plate up with it all just to sample it. And as with every buffet I’ve been to everything on the plate was just o.k. Nothing special. The pad thai was bland, the springs rolls were good on the other hand. I did get a few of those. I thought the best was the little pieces of marinated beef. They were dry but had good flavor. On my next round I mixed up the veggie pad thai with this beef and added some of the hot liquid spices and all was good. I think the price was $ 11 a person, not too bad, consider how many spring rolls and that beef I ate =) I’ll have to go back an actually order off the menu to see how the food taste fresh. Hopefully I’ll be able to give it a higher review.
This place is tucked away behind the Chipolte on Elden shree so keep you eyes open if you go. The décor inside is actually pretty tame for a Thai place. No super bright or loud colors.
If you just want to experience a Thai buffet, then here you go. Not the greatest food or too many choices, but o.k. I’ll go back and try ordering off the menu.

Buffet eating runs in my family. If you’ve been following along with my reviews, you know that I’m a sucker for a buffet. Seeing as how my brother has to always one up me, he has chosen to subspecialize and go after Thai buffets.
This is one of those times that reading the reviews here may have skewed my opinion of this place. I was expecting something horrible, but instead I found a pretty decent Thai buffet. The highlights of the buffet were the sundried beef, crispy pork with string beans, egg rolls, wontons, green curry, and tom kha soup. You can easily get your 10 – 11 dollars worth here. Yeah, the pad thai isn’t all that great, but cover it with some green curry and whatever, it’s all good. A lot of the dishes had a spicy kick to them, so you’ll either drink a lot of water or Thai iced tea to take the edge off. There were two dessert options, watermelon and some gelatin and palm seeds.
Service was good and drink refills were pretty quick. Overall, I’ll probably be back for the buffet if I’m in the area, definitely nothing worth driving long distances for. My brother said that «it got the job done.» Judge for yourself which review is more useful.

Okay, wow. A quarter inch of grease on top of my gang ped yang, and almost all the pieces of meat are slivers of shriveled skin? That’s a seriously off night for this place. Hovering over a sink with a quarter roll of paper towels to sop up the oil is revolting.

I have no clue how to rate the service, because my bf ordered out. He had the Siam duck — and I tasted it. I ordered the pad something-​or-​other: catfish. Both entrees were great, but for dessert I ordered the fried banana & ice cream and was not impressed. The frozen yogurt had that synthetic sugar taste, but wasn’t all that bad. It was the cardboard-​ish texture that the rolls had … I’ve had this dessert elsewhere and the rolls were crispy — not chewy. Maybe it was just a one-​time thing? Oh well — four stars because I’m feeling generous… but nothing can top my favorite Thai place — Thai X-​ing.

The menu says «Drunken Noodles, $ 10.95, choice of meat or seafood». But If you want meat it’s an extra $ 3.00 and seafood is $ 5.00 extra. This bit of scammery pretty much soured us on the restaurant. It’s too bad, because the food is excellent.

Decent is the right word for this place. I go there mostly at lunch for the buffet. They have a good selection to keep your stomach happy. Sometimes their food can be a little bit on the spicy side.

A decent Thai option in Herndon. I think the buffet is a relatively recent thing and I am sure it is working out for them.
It has been pretty busy any time I have been there — but never jam packed.
If you are in Herndon and are too busy or don’t have enough time to go further afield this is a decent Thai option.

I go here often to satisfy my Thai cravings because they have a buffet during lunch.
Their food is really pretty good and because of the buffet you can try a bunch of different dishes that you would not have normally ordered. Their green curry is fantastic as are their spring rolls. One thing that is positively terrible on the buffet though is their Pad Thai. It is flat out awful and I wish they would change their recipe.
The service here is great and if you need a quick lunch you can’t go wrong!

I have to say I’ve driven by this place a few times but did not enter because most of the time (meaning dinner), I don’t see too many customers inside. This could mean this places sucks, or just bad luck with location. So, one day I ran out of options to where to eat, and gave this place a try with my gf. It was a little scary coz’ there was only one other table with customers only. We were number 2!!! The service was good (can’t complaint because the server had only 2 tables to serve).
Ok…now come the food. I ordered Siam Duck (loved it) and some noodles (I think it was Pad See Ew) — great flavor. When they say be careful when you want spicy, they really mean it. If you read their menu carefully, they have a spicy disclaimer at the bottom. It reads something like… if you ordered too spicy, you have been warned”. Thought that was pretty funny. My second time there, I ordered the seafood salad, papaya salad, tom yum soup, and some fish dish (deep fried and then stir fried with spices). They were all very tasty… all strong in flavor. Very yummie!
I’ll definitely go back there again. I hope this place survives because it would be sad to see them go. They have great food, but just bad location. I’ve heard their buffet is not bad too… you just have to make sure you go early because since their not too busy, if you go late the buffet food may not be that fresh.

The food was not that great… just plain ordinary. And the customer service (especially of the owner lady) was very unfriendly. My friend had to walk out of the restaurant once. If you are looking for the best thai food in town, go to «Thai Luang»

Honestly I’m shocked that the reviews for Tarin Thai are so low. I’ve visited a majority of the Thai restaurants in the area, and while I wouldn’t say that Tarin is the best in the entire DC area, it certainly is one of the best restaurants that the area around it has to offer (within maybe a 5 – 10 mile radius).
I’ve never had the buffet, but buffet food is always below par for what a restaurant can do and if people are shocked that it isn’t the equivalent of what a nice sit down dinner can offer, then perhaps they need to re-​adjust their standards.
I personally find the food here delicious, and I don’t think the portions are that small. I usually have enough to save for a small lunch later or so. I find the pad thai delicious! It is moist and tastes authentic. I’ve also sampled their other dishes and have never really been let down. I like Tarin better than Thai Towne, the previously named Thai Palms, heck, even Thai Luong. While I would probably go to Duangrats for a special occasion, or maybe Sakoontra if I was closer to that area, I love Tarin and would definitely recommend it hands-​down for anyone who is close by.
I also like the décor… I think some Thai restaurants can either be too gaudy or else too minimalistic in an attempt to be classy, but I think Tarin lies in a comfortable medium.

This is a review of the buffet of Tarin Thai and it’s not going to be a good one maybe a la carte lunch orders are the way to go here. The place seemed ok with some legitimate Thai decorations on the inside. We ordered the buffet and it was terrible!
The dishes were just weird tasting is that cinnamon and nutmeg on my spicy chicken? There was some beef jerky’ish thing there as well can you say control the temperature? The pad Thai was really bad like the dried bowl from trader joes put this to shame. Sorry to say the best thing on the buffet was the chicken wings and an ok tom yum gai.
Something tells me that this place is the place you don’t want to take a thai friend for some home cooked meal, ala taking an Italian person to the olive garden they would probably spit in your face for such an offense and rightfully so.

More of a lunch place, Tarin Thai offers choices similar to most Thai places. The lunch buffet is just OK and typically has 6 – 8 different dishes (along with a soup, salad, fried rice, spring rolls). The pad thai, one of the most popular Thai dishes, is not very good. The other dishes are decent. For Thai newbies, you may be a bit disappointed. But for others that need a Thai fix, this will get you through the day.

I was in northern Virginia and had no idea where to eat. A local friend was listing places and as soon as she mentioned «Thai buffet», I was sold!
The interior is colorful and I noticed a healthy crowd. I asked our server (service was fine) for water. Speaking of drinks, they have a bar and have a few different kinds of wines at $ 4.50/glass. If it was the weekend, I might have indulged.
The buffet is available during lunch hours and has a good dish selection: there are one or two seafood choices, green beans and chicken, tofu curry, penang curry, fried rice, chicken wings, spring rolls (didn’t try), pad thai with chicken, pad see eaw (stir-​fried wide rice noodles with broccoli — good), and an amazingly tasty soup, the tom kha gai (spiced lemongrass broth with chicken and mushrooms). It was more coconutty sweet than spicy, but delicious!
It’s one of the more expensive Thai buffet lunches I’ve had, but I recommend it nonetheless.

Tarin thai provides an interesting experience because while I really enjoy the food, service tends to be pretty poor and it is very often empty. There is just something very awkward about being one of the only groups at a restaurant. I haven’t gotten enough dishes to really assess the range of dishes, but I will say that the calamari is fantastic. Probably the best calamari I’ve had. Very lightly battered and fresh tasting.
There are a lot of thai places in the area but Tarin Thai is definitely worth a visit.

I had not been to this place in a long time. A lot has changed. They have a lunch buffet of Thai dishes for $ 9.95.
The dishes on the buffet were good. I liked the taste of the soup and enjoyed the 5 different chicken dishes. My friend who is a vegetarian had a choice of 4 dishes. He regretted that there was no Veg. Pad Thai. The staff/​management may have chnaged and service is very prompt at least during lunch.
Dessert however was only cut melon. But I had hardly any room for dessert.
Ordering carry-​out they have some coupons on thier website.

We went into Tarin Thai in a good mood. We left in a not-​so-​good mood. Authenticity, presentation and flavor aside, the portions were slightly below average in size. There was hardly any chicken in the Green Curry at all. The amount of rice provided with the Green Curry was down right embarrassing. It looked like it had been measured with the smallest ice cream scoop available. I would say it was made with a melon baller, but I don’t want to exaggerate. They then want to charge extra for more rice. Maybe this is customary in the DC area, but I can tell you that there was only one other time that a restaurant skimped me on rice and tried to charge extra for more; they are no longer in business.
The service was awkward at best. First we were sat at the bar, and we made the mistake of asking the man there about the menu. He couldn’t convey anything about any of the dishes. I suspect it was a language barrier issue, but then maybe he belonged in the kitchen. My thought would be if you are a family owned restaurant and you have a passion for your food and your country, then maybe you would at least be able to describe your favorite dish (I am not even asking for multiple menu items here) effectively in the language of the country in which you are selling it. After we ordered, we were then sat at a table. Why they moved us around is still a mystery since no reason was given. Aside from bringing me my food and my check, there wasn’t much table service. I even mentioned the rice thing to the waitress and she quickly responded with the unyielding and unsympathetic…“Well that’s how much we give.”…answer. So that fell on deaf ears.
The final insult came when they didn’t honor the expired coupon they had the nerve to distribute. I obtained and verified that they were still giving out the same menu with an expired coupon on it, so I made the mistake of assuming that they would honor it. WRONG! I could go on about the décor but what is the point. I won’t be visiting Tarin Thai again and suggest the same to the rest of you. Sorry.