On Rice

Great Thai restaurant for a date, dinner with friends or take out! I only go here for take out, but the ambiance is always really cool and relaxing. The staff is very kind and welcoming. I get cashew chicken, which comes in a generous portion with your choice of rice and spice. The only problem I have is sometimes the spice level seems to vary even though I get the same dish at the same spice number. Either way, this place has negative reviews for no reason. If you like Thai food, you’ll like On Rice. Unless you’re a Thai snob.

Pleasant setting, good food, and reasonable service make On Rice a pleasant spot for a meal. On this Friday night they had live piano. Not particularly Thai, but very pleasant nonetheless.
Since I was eating alone I decided on an appetizer and soup. I tried the miang kum appetizer. It was a bowl of spinach leaves and a variety of toppings to make mini wraps. Toasted coconut, lime, peanuts, Thai chilies, onion (actually the hottest item), ginger, and a sweet sauce. Flavorful!
The soup I tried was tom kah; a broth with coconut milk, mushrooms and chicken. Slightly spicy at the «two peppers» level and redolent of fish sauce. Perfect on a cool rainy evening. All accompanied by slightly astringent Singha beer to clear the pallet.
I was a bit worried by some of the reviews, but I found On Rice worthy of future visits!

love the selection of dishes especially vegetarian ones. lots of veggies good tofu, choice of brown rice. reasonably priced. nice atmosphere, friendly if sometimes a bit slow service. choice of spicyness.

The coconut fried prawns were over battered and over cooked, wouldn’t have ordered if I had known.
The red curry was unremarkable, heavy on bamboo shoots and a little light on the sauce itself, though they did a good job making it spicy.
The waitress was very nice, pleasant, and provided good service. Pretty, too.

Consistently inconsistent with take outs. If you call in to report a crappy meal, or come back, they «add» you to their book for a «free» dish, but it doesn’t exist. They go through enough staff that even if you had the name of who you spoke with, she’s gone by the time you call back to claim your meal. Eating in is always good, but I wouldn’t recommend getting a to go meal.

The food and service are always awesome! 5 stars and 2 thumbs up
Wonderful ambience in the dining room, and take out is always super fast. Thai on rice is my My favorite comfort food.

Good food, good service and good local beers on tap. My favorite Thai place in the ‘ham — have also tried their location on Samish Way — food is just about the same but I like the ambience at the Fairhaven location better for some reason. The Emperor Cashew with Chicken is my go-​to dish here but have also tried the fried rice and the Swimming Rama and those are excellent as well.

Slowly making my way to all 3 locations of On Rice. I usually go to the one on Sammish.
The fresh rolls were quite fresh indeed but over priced for the quantity received and ingredients in the wrap. $ 8 for mostly noodles and lettuce… No thanks! The sauce was decent but I would have preferred a peanut or sweet chilly sauce versus the almost hoisin like sauce that came with the rolls.
Little starter salad were great as usual. The magic is all in the peanut sauce. I wish they sold that stuff in a container!
My entrée, the spicy eggplant dish, was not spicy at all (3 stars– should have gotten 5). I did like the eggplant and veggies. I got mine with fresh tofu. The sauce was flavorful and went well with my brown rice.
My friend got pad see ew. Way too oily… And the egg was burnt. At least the broccoli tasted good and gave the dish some color to the otherwise brown pile of oily noodles.
Overall the food was mediocre for the price but the service was great! Our waitress was attentive and friendly.

I used to like this place, but had a bad experience quite a while ago. I was eating my Pad Thai and bit into a large piece of plastic packaging. My meal was comped, but it was still pretty gross. I gave them another chance because I realize mistakes happen. However the next time I went in, I ordered shrimp that was spoiled. I took one bite and knew it was old. Needless to say, I won’t be back.

Food is pretty good, though not inspiring.
Very unimpressed by wait staff. Frequent delays and often forgetful. I’d avoid this restaurant on those grounds alone.

Sad but true… not worth the price. Phad thai noodles undercooked, only four peanuts, hardly any chicken & the chicken that was there was bland. They left the rice out of order & the tofu satay was not grilled… just steamed tofu. This was my last time to try them.

Food here is really delicious! Especially the complimentary starter salad with warm peanut sauce dressing. It would be really nice if you could get that salad with take out but unfortunately you have to pay extra to get a salad when you choose to not eat here. Which is absurd because you are saving them money by taking the food to leave and not filling up their tables. Unfortunately really horrible customer service.

We stopped here on our way back from Whistler to Seattle based on all the good reviews. The service here was really great and all the food came out pretty fast which is just what we needed after a day of skiing and long drive home. The food was all delicious. The pad thai and their specials come with a side of rice and we each got a salad to start with.

I believe this is the third On Rice location in Bellingham. Ken & Nutthinee Tipasathien definitely need to open more. Absolutely delectable Thai creations. We had the Fresh Rolls, Sarm Sa Hai and Phad Se Ew. The service was friendly and very fast. It’s nice to see that Fairhaven is smart enough to have a great Thai restaurant to help meet the Thai food cravings of their visitors.
We will definitely be back!

On Rice: Fairhaven Location
Years after college, On Rice IS STILL our favorite place for Thai food! Phily actually used to work at all 3 of the locations. In order to stay unbiased we will focus primarily on the food and not the service or management. The upside to this though, is that we’ve tasted nearly every single dish on the menu! See our «FAVORITES» section if you want to see what else is good here OTHER than Chicken Pad Thai: p
PROs:
* Tasty tasty tasty! We’ve been to plenty of other Thai restaurants after leaving Bellingham, and we agree this place is still the best in terms of taste. And just to reiterate, we’ve had nearly every item on the menu.
* Free side of rice with your entrée! Many dishes come with a side of white or brown rice with your entrée. Most places do not do this.
* There is a large back room in the Fairhaven location. It is not visible from the main area of the restaurant. This room is great for booking a meeting or party. Make sure you request the room ahead of time. Ask your server for details.
* Thai music is played throughout the restaurant. It’s set to a relatively low volume so it’s a nice addition to the ambiance.
CONs:
* A little pricey? We wouldn’t call the food expensive, but it’s definitely not cheap.
* «Authentic Thai Cuisine» is a VERY relative word. We’ll put it this way… Do you have any Thai friends? Yah… we’ll bet money that few if ANY of their parent’s home cooking tastes like this haha. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing… as we have stated, the food is great! But authentic isn’t the right word for it.
* Chill out on the ICE! If you like the Thai Iced Tea… ask for less ice. Otherwise you’ll get more ice than tea!
* The waiting staff is a revolving door of college students. If you have special needs/​requests with your food, we HIGHLY recommend you double check your order. There is bound to always be someone in training.
OTHER COMMENTS:
* Take a risk in ordering something OTHER than just Pad Thai! Try to be a little more adventurous! Getting Pad Thai at a Thai restaurant is the equivalent to getting plain vanilla ice cream at Baskin Robbins :p See our «FAVORITES» section.
* Parking is a bit odd at the Fairhaven location. There is obviously street parking, however when that is full, there is more parking up the hill and across the street in a gravel lot.
FAVORITES:
* Phily: Drunken Noodle (aka Pad Kee Mao at other places), Bami Hang, Crab Rangoon, Peanut Sauce
* Nansay: Pad Thai, Pad Se Ew, Pineapple Fried Rice, Fresh Rolls, Thai Ice Tea
FINAL THOUGHTS:
When it comes down to it, On Rice makes delicious food! Authentic probably isn’t the correct word, but that doesn’t mean the food is bad! Whenever we are back in Bellingham for an odd ball visit, we are always sure to make a stop at one of the On Rice locations. Our goal is to find a better Thai Restaurant in the Seattle/​Bellevue area. We are yet to find something as good or better. We’ll be back again the next time we’re in town!

I really liked this spot, I’ve had good experiences here and the other location on Harris Ave, Barkley leaves a bit to be desired, but maybe it was just an off day.
Pad Thai: Loved it.
Spring Rolls: Wonderful.
Peanut Sauce: Worth the trip alone!
Service: Overall, adequate and attentive
Recommended, both here and Harris Ave.

I’ve had consistent food between both of their samish and harris locations every time I have gone. They have great prices for the serving size of their food, and I always have some to take home with me; or I can share it with a friend. What I really appreciate is that they can tone down the spice or raise it to the max for both me and my boyfriend. Plus their peanut-​sauce is to die for.
The decorations are fantastic, and going their for a date felt really special.

Great prices for the portions, however same menu to all other thai places i’ve been too, no different dishes offered, but somewhat different flavors.
For starters my friend and I had fresh spring rolls, which came with great dipping sauces for sides. Their peanut sauce was nothing like i’ve had before though, very different from other thai places.
I had the Emperors Cashew stir fry with chicken which came out fantastic, great flavor and sauce it was sauted in. My friend had the classic drunken noodles, and the chili sauce was hot enough to make anyones nose run, or at least the spice level in the dish was!
An appetizer and two entrees didn’t even break $ 35, which is a shock coming from other thai joints in NJ, AK or CA.

I’ve only been here twice, this past weekend and about a year and a half ago. Both times I really liked this place! I love their starter salad with the peanut sauce on top. I ordered tofu pad thai as my main dish and it was very good. However they charge you more when it’s dinner time which is unfortunate. My sister got the Massaman curry and loved it. We took some pretty picky eaters here and they also really enjoyed it.
The only thing that turned me off from this place was that this last time the waitress was very cold and did not even make an effort to pretend to be happy. I’m sorry, but when I’m dealing with the public I’m friendly unless they give me a reason not to be.

We went here two days in a row for lunch because we loved the pad thai. The chicken curry was okay, I’ve had better elsewhere. We liked the complimentary soups that were offered. The portions were large, especially the pad thai. The service was friendly and good. The bathrooms are outside and down the hall.