Ben Thanh

Why bother going anywhere else in Guelph. Lunchtime or eveningl food is always superb. Excellent value and service. There's no alternative to Vietnamese or Thai food in the area. Others don't come close to BT.

My friends and I frequent Ben Thanh often. At least twice a month. We usually all order the same thing every time. Tom Yum soup, mango salad. red thai curry etc.....

The food is almost always great, though numerous things that make me a bit crazy....

service is always all over the place...everything arrives at the same time, apps and mains or mains before apps.. there is one server who seems to know whats going on. she is great though somehow we've missed out on her section.

the patio tables outside have been broken for months..visited in june..all three tables bases broken...tried again in oct. same deal.

i understand that staff also need to eat, though why is it almost everytime I'm there for dinner the kitchen staff parade through the dining room with their dinner and eat in full view of people paying to eat....My frend noticed that the staff dinner included whole crabs. She asked our server if she could order it, he replied oh its for the chef only...

also the collection of servers, staff by the front bar on their cell phones texting....i used the bathroom during dinner....our server never came back to ask if everything was alright...I found him sitting by the bathrooms texting...he looked up and asked it we needed anything,

Anyways be prepared for it..the food is good though its a wreck otherwise...

we just moved to Guelph and have visited your restraunt three times...however the last time it was so cold we ask to have the air turned up. the next table had coats on, and the air was way too cold...i don't really care about your servers and if they get warm...im paying the bill and your place is too cold ....you know what guys we have not even had any nice weather and why do you need the air on anyway....we are in a recession so when i spend my money i will indeed go to a comphy place that is good like yours and i will be warm, you are just way way toooooo cold...

my husband and i went with our 2 year old son. i asked the server's opinion about a few items and he said he hadnt tried them so could not tell me much. we each ordered the dinner for one, and we ordered a mango salad also. the mango in the mango salad was not very ripe. the soup was good. the spring rolls were overly greasy. my main dish, a chicken stirfry, was not very good - the chicken tasted like rubber. my husband's meal was eatable, but we have had much better thai food elsewhere. when i informed the server that the chicken tasted like rubber he apologized, but didnt do anything else. when he returned he asked if he could bring our bill, and i had to remind him that we had ordered dessert. the dessert came and he still had not cleared our dinner dishes yet. the dessert was mediocre. we will not return. it is too bad because it would be nice to have more restaurant options in the west end of guelph.

This is my favorite restaurant in Guelph. Everything I've ordered on the menu is great. The food comes out at most 10 minutes after ordering. The shakes are good, the curries are excellent and the veggie dishes are all tasty.
I'd totally recommend it.

MSG - I believe this is the secret ingredient in every dish we ate. After talking to everyone in our party a few days later, we all commented how we felt we were hit with a ton a bricks within 1 hour of eating here. We all ordered separately from a variety of dishes and there was no sharing,

Great food, lots of vegies. My son asked for shrimp chips and peanut sauce, they didn't have it on the menu. The chief was nice enough to perp. special order for my son. Very nice staff, friendly and accommodating. The price is right, the atmosphere is calm and relaxed. Will definitely recommend.

I came when it first opened and it wasn't too bad.
I recently went back on the 28th for an anniversary dinner, and was highly impressed that we were seated instantly even thought the resturaunt was packed.
Our table was beautiful, off to the side in from of a window with a gorgeous candle and arrangement.
We only ordered two things seeing as we had had appetizers elsewhere and I was satisfied, but not impressed.
The fresh shrimp rolls were tasty and neatly wrapped, but the peanut sauce tasted out of a jar and hardly had peanuts in it.
We also ordered the seafood pad thai with only shrimp in it.
It came rather quickly, and didn't look big enough to split (it was however.)
With first bite I thought it was great, but after the second I realized the sauce tasted like BBQ sauce mixed with a few spices and weakly spread over the noodles. Not as good as momma makes!
We ended taking most of it home, and I ate it the next day.
It wasn't great, but it wasn't horrible.
I still prefer pad thai from Pho Kinh Do.

Not going back to this one again...

The first time we went we ate ALL of our dinner and they hadn't even finished bringing out our whole meal. I told the waitress we had finished up so she packaged the dish to go - trust me, we don't eat quickly and really weren't in a rush... I think they must have forgot.

Second visit = hair in my fresh spring roll... yep not a nice sight. They brought a new plate of them out but for some reason they just weren't appetizing anymore :) I also thought they should have been "on the house" but no such luck.

I go to the Waterloo one all the time and it is exceptional - so take the drive to Waterloo on Northfield it is soooo much better.

This was our first time at Ben, service was promt and quick, i was surprised to see the size of this place, it's quite big. We enjoyed the dinner, everything seemed fresh. The only thing I didn't like that the place was not very clean, washrooms were quite a mess.