Come enjoy a savory meal at Golden Bell Thai Restaurant. They are open after-hours from Monday to Saturday and are conveniently reachable by car. Payments by Visa, MasterCard and American Express are recognized.
I loved the food at Golden Bell. Newmarket has a lot of Thai restaurants and while most of them are good, I feel this one greatly stands out as the best. They have a very inexpensive lunch menu and a quaint dining room if you don't opt for take-out. The service is nothing spectacular as far as dining in goes but it is passable. I will make this my first choice for Thai food.
My boyfriend and I decided to check this place out after reading nothing but 5-star reviews obtained from performing a Google Map search to see what restaurants were in the Newmarket area.
(Let's just say I should have came to Restaurantica first!)
Summary:
The Good: fresh ingredients
The Mediocre: taste, dishes served lukewarm
The Bad: service - no dishes were cleared from our table
The place was packed when we arrived. Luckily we got the last table out of about no more than 10 tables. We were seated at a table suitable for 4, so we had more than enough dining space - or so we thought.
Our dining experience started off with complimentary shrimp chips that came with a warm peanutty dip. We ordered 3 appetizers (2 soups, 1 spring rolls dish) and 2 entrees, which was way too much food for the both of us - oops! We quickly ran out of table space as the dishes accumulated. Unfortunately, the waitress did not clear any of the finished dishes from our table throughout the evening. We had to pile our dishes to make more space. She only came back to our table to give us the bill.
The soups (Tom Yam Hed and Hot & Sour) were 'okay'. We've definitely had better. The temperature was lukewarm, not steaming, but the portion size was generous for the "Small" size. My Hed (mushroom) soup was very watery in texture, while my boyfriend's Hot & Sour soup was a little too gooey. I liked the sweet chilies of my Hed soup, but wished the mushroomed were sliced and not left whole. I wouldn't order these again.
The "veggie" spring rolls were served hot and fresh. However, the only vegetable I could see was shredded carrot - just a sea of orange. I couldn't taste anything else; maybe some invisible cabbage somewhere. The sweet n' sour dipping sauce was definitely more on the sweet side... a bit too sweet - almost like maple syrup. I'm more accustomed to plum dipping sauces with a bit of heat from other thai restaurants.
The Pad Thai was nothing special; it was actually substandard to other pad thai noodles I've had elsewhere. Our dish came with 2 shrimps and 2 or 3 pieces of chicken, which is quite skimpy. The raw shredded red cabbage on the side was generous though, but not something I typically see on pad thai dishes.
The Green Curry Chicken with steamed rice was decent. It was on the sweet-side; we were forewarned about this by the waitress. My boyfriend wasn't a fan, but I absolutely love basil and coconut so I preferred this over the Pad Thai. It was interesting to see cabbage used in this dish, but I appreciated it.
Overall, I was expecting a lot more from this restaurant... especially from all the 5-star reviews it received. I really tried to give it a chance and like it, but the dishes and service fell short. I "might" return again to try other dishes, but I would not go out of my way to eat here.
I love Thai food! And I thoroughly enjoy the food here. The place is a little scary from the outside, but it's really cute once you get inside! My new favourite local Thai restaurant. I always recommend it to friends.
Food was average. Mango salad was great compared to the rest of my food. Like any other thai place I have been to, nothing special and not in a hurry to return.
My wife and I went for dinner at the Oakland Hall Restaurant on Sat.17 Dec. It was are Wedding Anniversary. Well I must say we had a wonderful dinning experience.We have lived close to this place but felt it was'nt for us ,boy were we wrong.
The food was amazing. My wife's favarite is Lobster,so we bough had Surf and Turf.We had caesar salads and a bottle of wine which was recommended by the Waiter.
The staff were courteous and made us feel at home.There was a piano Bar in the next room, so we checked it out and will go back just for that. I would recommend this restaurant to anybody looking for a great place to eat and be enterained
Peter C
I wasn't flabergasted by this restaurant, but it was good and the price was fair. The dining area is a bit small but the atmosphere is good.
It might not be the Thai food of your life, but still it was very decent.
Thai Golden Bell is one of our favourite places. We have yet to find another THAI place that is as good as this one. The staff are all very friendly and typically the service is good. We have been in the restaurant when it's been PACKED and we always have good service.
Our favourite dishes include beef and broccoli, marinated chicken, coconut rice, cashew chicken etc.
Always delicious and considered 'comfort' food in our house!
The crispy chicken isn't to be missed. The chicken fried rice is also delicious with its huge slices of chicken. We also recently tried the beef with broccoli cooked in oyster sauce. Delicious.
The spring rolls are mostly carrot but even though I'm not a fan of carrots I don't mind them. I chalk this up to being their own unique recipe so you can take it or leave it.
Again though, the crispy chicken is the reason to visit Golden Bell. We drive quite a long way when the craving comes to me!
My friend and I visited the Thai Golden Bell because we had heard it was quite good. However our meal was not. We tried the spring rolls, which were full of strips of carrots and not much else. These lacked flavour. Though the dipping sauce was okay. We decided to try two dishes, Pad Thai and Coconut Chicken. The Chicken was okay, but we wouldn't order it again. The Pad Thai was mushy, tons of slivered carrots and no flavour at all. It was a very disappointing meal.
Excellent food & friendly service.
Our favorites include the thai spicy beef salad, glass noodle chicken and the green curry.
The crispy chicken is outstanding.
The decor is a little shabby but the place is always clean.
I eat at a lot of restaurants from fine dining to...
I eat at a lot of restaurants from fine dining to tiny little hole-in-the- wall places, and this was by far the worst meal I have ever had. The atmosphere was okay, dark, slightly shabby, but clean. The server was courteous, especially for being so busy. But the food was a whole other story. The spring rolls were greasy and bland. The green curry was an unappetizing, unnatural colour and was sweet - weird. We didn't fare much better with the chicken pad thai. Going strictly on appearance, it looked good, but again tasted too sweet and was gluey! We literally had one bite of each plate and asked for the check. No one asked if there was something wrong - just gave us the bill. We could not get out of there fast enough. The place was packed however, and people kept popping in to pick up their take-out, so go figure!
i ordered the chili chicken which was under $9. it came with no rice, that was extra. ($1.25) was not at all impressed with the chili chicken, but then again it's not even thai food. it was way too salty, had no gravy and most of the pieces were just breaded batter with tiny pieces of chicken in the middle. for the price, not worth it one bit. i will go back to this place though, for actual thai food. while waiting i saw some really good dishes being served to customers. very clean restaurant however its small.
Thai Golden Bell is one of our favourite restaurants to eat at in Newmarket. The service has always been friendly, the restaurant is clean, & we have always been served quickly. The food is always excellent - we love the lemongrass soup (my husband & I share a large bowl) and the thai spring rolls are out of this world!!! My favourite entree is the thai spicy noodles - very fragrant with thai basil, and so delicious. My husband loves the pad thai - he orders it everytime we visit. I highly recommend this restaurant!
I had my meal delivered, and got it in about 40 mins. It smelled amazing- but that's about it. To be fair, the coconut rice and spring rolls were really good- but the lemon chicken soup was REALLY spicy (still tasty, i guess- i couldn't eat it though), the pad thai was overly spiced (i've never had spicy pad thai, and i can't say that i enjoyed it). Oh, and i was charged $2 for a kid's-size juice box. What's with that? With my meal they gave me a bag of multi-coloured puff/crisp things, which looked cool- but tasted like dirty frying oil and shrimp, and disolved into the most disgusting gluey texture.
I was really hoping to like this place, but when the food is this hit-and-miss, i really can't.
The food wasnt that great (ordered). The service...
The food wasnt that great (ordered). The service was fast.The curry looked like they added food colouring. The satay wasn't very good. The free Thai chips were stale.
