Ban Chok Dee: Award-winning Thai food in Maple Ridge

Ban Chok Dee is a Thai restaurant with 2 locations in Maple Ridge and Pitt Meadows. In 2016, they were awarded the “Thai Select Premium” status by the official Royal Thai Consulate General office. They have also won other local awards over the years, the funniest one is the one that said “Best pasta” inside their Maple Ridge location (lol pasta??).

This review is based on a dinner take-out experience only.

Appetizers

Seasoned lettuce wraps ($18)

You can choose between minced chicken, beef or pork. The meat is seasoned with fresh lime leaves, carrot, red & green bell pepper, onion, garlic, basil and cashew. They give you half a head of iceberg lettuce and a topping of fried egg noodles. For this appetizer, we chose chicken with medium heat.

So medium is just slightly too spicy for me but if you are a spicy food lover, this will be nothing to you.

I generally liked the seasoned meat filling. I think the fried egg noodles really made it much better because it added a crunchier texture to the minced chicken. The seasoning is very refreshing since you can really taste the lime and basil. I find this to be quite a healthy appetizer choice.

Curries

Yellow curry ($18)

Again, you can choose your meat from chicken, beef or pork. We choose beef for the yellow curry. To make it yellow, they use a yellow curry paste with coconut milk, potato, onion, pineapple and carrot. We chose mild for the curry.

With Thai curries, you will find the consistency to be more watered down than Indian curries, which are thicker. Thai curries are also a lot sweeter with a fruity hint from the coconut milk and additional fruits.

The rice that comes with the curry is quite a small serving but you can always make more rice at home.

Green curry ($18)

The green curry comes with coconut milk, eggplant, red & green
bell peppers and sweet basil leaves. We choose chicken with medium spice.

This curry has a much stronger smell because of the sweet basil leaves. It also looks a lot better in terms of take-out appearance.

I usually prefer green curries more because I really like eggplant, but the colour doesn’t look that green to me if you know what I mean. Similar to the yellow curry, it is sweet but since we chose medium spice, it is spicier than the yellow curry.

Street food

Curried noodles with chicken/Kao soi ($19)

I first tried Kao soi in Chiang Mai. It was recommended to me by the server when I asked her for a non-spicy dish.

Kao soi is a northern Thailand dish from Chiang Mai. They use Chiang Mai style egg noodles curried with tender chicken drumsticks, cilantro, red onion, green onion, chili oil, pickled cabbage, bean sprout & lime.

The first sip/bite of this noodle soup is amazing because the curry soup is so sweet and rich and the egg noodles soak up all that yumminess. The chicken drumsticks (2) are very tender and fall off the bone. I also love to top this dish off with some more fried egg noodles to add more crunch to this otherwise soupy noodle.

This dish can taste a little overwhelming near the end but if you are sharing, it is the perfect amount! It is not spicy at all.

Noodles

Pad thai ($17)

I loooove pad thai and I always judge a Thai restaurant based on whether or not I like their pad thai. It’s just a staple!

Pad Thai is a signature stir-fried noodle dish. They use pan-fried rice noodles in tamarind sauce, with chicken or prawns, egg, tofu, green onions, bean sprouts, topped with ground peanuts.

I find that some Thai restaurants use a really sour/red sauce for their pad thai, which I do not like. I prefer the sweeter, more brown-coloured sauce. This is why I enjoyed the pad thai at Ban Chok Dee – because it did taste like the ones I’ve had in Thailand.

I also really like that I don’t need to pay additional for prawns instead of the 3 regular meats. We chose mild but the pad thai was still a little spicy.

Final thoughts

I am really happy to find a good Thai restaurant in Maple Ridge. I think their food is authentic and super delicious. Everything we had was yummy and since then, we have ordered again.

The stand-out dish for me is certainly the kao soi because I find not every Thai restaurant has this dish. All of their curries are great as well and if you prefer a sweeter pad thai, then you should definitely try it. (Basically I liked everything).

Price-wise it is more expensive than your average Thai place, but for the quality it is a reasonable price. We ordered an appetizer, curry, kao soi and pad thai for a total of around $70 for 4 people and still had leftovers.

If you are ever in the Maple Ridge or Pitt Meadows area, I highly recommend you give them a try!

Sincerely, Loewe