Tamarind Tree Restaurant Review

Jason here. Last week we had some family up for the week. This was a great opportunity to go out and eat at some fun restaurants. The first place we decided to go is Tamarind Tree, the sister restaurant to Long which you may remember from our previous review.

The restaurant is situated in the international district in Seattle, and a little hard to find parking for. It does have a parking lot, but be warned it fills up fast.

The restaurant itself has a very nice atmosphere, but one that is a little hard to describe. We were seated outside, but under enclosed canopy. It has torchlights and heat lamps to provide warmth. I found it to still be a little cold, which unfortunately also led to my food getting cold faster than usual.

This time I got lucky and could order the Kumquat Crush drink. It was much less sour then I was expecting. The taste was more dominated by the kumquat rind than anything else. If you have never eaten a kumquat, the inside is very sour and sweet, but the rind is almost sugary with the same texture as an orange rind.

I ordered the same thing as I did at Long, which was the Co Ngu crispy shrimp. The shrimp was just as delicious as before. The salad it came with I still didn’t enjoy but I expected that.

Once again we got stuck, with no clue how to actually eat our salads. The problem is they are full leafs of basil and lettuce, there is some light dressing, and all you have are chopsticks. I loved the looks of confusion and deep contemplation as each person attempted to discern how to not look foolish while eating their salad. I just know someone somewhere must have been looking at us and thinking, “What are those fools doing?”

The crispy fried sweet potato, was less than crispy. Last time it was finely made almost like deep fried noodles, and very crunch. This time is like soggy French fries. A little disappointing.

Luckily the shrimp, and house sauce was still very much delicious. The house sauce has a sweet and salty taste to it. It is very watery so it is hard to get much on any particular bite, but it is so full of flavor it only takes a bit.

Kayleigh here. After visiting Long, I was excited to see much of the same menu, and eagerly ordered the Tamarind Tree Crepe off their Specials section. What I received did exactly match the menu description, but it looked and tasted…rushed. The crepe was crispy on the outside, but soft and soggy on the inside, as if it had been cooked too quickly at too high a heat. The house sauce on the side was excellent, and the shrimp inside were cooked perfectly, but the dish overall was unfortunately a bit lacking compared to our Long experience. Since we have only gone once to each location, I cannot definitively say Long is the better choice, but it will be the one we will return to next time.

As a closing note, we later looked up what the side greens were for. Apparently, we were to wrap our food up in them, then dip it all in the sauce to eat. Well, mark us for double fools, then!