Thai Food Hating Profiled Lunch’er Eats Some Thai Food
Remember the profiled lunch’er who admitted that he didn’t like Thai food, and then became the most ridiculed Profiled Midtown Lunch’er of all time? Well, for once, your ridicule actually worked to effect positive change in the world- and “Matt” is happy to report that he tried Thai food again and… (well, I don’t want to spoil it.)
After the spirited feedback from the comments section (side note to the person who accused me of living in my parents basement: you’re insulting random people on the internet and I’m the one who lives in my parents basement?), I decided to journey out and try Thai food. The choice was Pam’s Real Thai Food (on 49th btw. 9+10th), although I generally don’t eat at restaurants that cite their realness in the name, I decided to trust the comments section. I selected a number of co-workers so we could maximize our order. While the shrimp roll we started with was typical, I found the Thai Beef Jerky to be quite a treat. I don’t even like regular beef jerky – could this Thai cuisine improve on other dishes as well? As the different entrees were passed around the table, I noticed the Pad Thai coming my way. This was the big moment.
I tried this traditional Thai dish and I found it to be quite delicious! The sauce was fantastic and it had just the right mix of noodles and vegetables.
Would I eat Thai food again? Absolutely. Although I put Thai food in the same category as Indian food – foods I will eat only if I’m not doing anything important that day. I wouldn’t chow down on this before a big meeting. That’s just me. Feel free to disagree and you probably will… as I am the most hated man in Midtown Lunch history.
Ok, so it may have worked this time commenters. But don’t think that this makes up for all the non-productive times you guys have massacred Profiled Lunchers…
Posted: 10:30 am, April 15th, 2009 under PROFILE: Midtown Lunch'er, Thai.
48 Comments | RSS comments feed for this post
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48 Comments
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Speaking of thai food, anybody know of a couple of good locales in the midtown area. Im specifically looking for excellent Pad Thai. Seems like most places are very average.
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yay! see, internet bullying doesn’t have to result in tragedy. hats off to matt.
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Maybe we can suggest some decent Indian food places for this guy to try.
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Yeah MATT! Good for you and thanks for not taking comments too seriously, I think we all suffer from crankyness from low-blood sugar and hunger.
You are now my favorite ML profiled luncher!!
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I’m glad that you finally tried it and enjoyed it! The first time I had Thai food, I actually wasn’t too crazy about it. I ordered chicken sate and pad thai and thought that both were way too sweet. I tried it again a couple of years later at another restaurant and started liking it more. Now, I love the stuff.
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I love Pam Real Thai but their Thai beef jerky is awful. Now Matt’s entire worldview is suspect to me!
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Wait a minute. He’d never had pad thai before? Now I’m really confused. Isn’t that like saying you don’t like Mexican food without having tried a burrito?
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baby steps
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@dan L – that was the whole ’cause of the haterade against this guy to begin with. He said he hated thai food w/o ever trying it, due to someone throwing up b/c of some bad pad thai
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I think we can all agree that that the bottom line of all this is that Zach now has to eat that Walgreen’s sandwich. And take Sarah Hellerman along with him.
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No one can ever say midtown lunch hasn’t made a difference in the world. The issue wasn’t that you didn’t like Thai, but that you thought it was some stomach destroying food. Its noodles and chicken and delicious.
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I think what he did was awesome. He didn’t shy away from the negative comments – he faced his demons head on! and Now he knows he doesnt HATE thai. he may not love it but at least he went out there and proved to himself he could do it!
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Good on ya Matt. And DocChuck aka Fred has you beat as most-hated by a loooong mile.
Anyone ever tell you you look like Mick Jones of the Clash / B.A.D. ?
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Am I the only who thinks there’s too many Thai places in the city?
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Why is the person next to Matt in photo # 1 blocked out?
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@DDR – She was embarassed to be seen with him?
He actually asked that I crop out anybody else in the photos aside from him- so I just blacked the face out instead.
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Good for you Matt. Now that you’ve eaten Thai now you can understand why we were so brutal on you.
Hope that you are able to enjoy an even bigger variety of dishes in the future.
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@ Fred: Ha ha. So true. Zach, it’s just a damn sandwich! : )
All right. I’m going to get on my soapbox now. (Violins playing in background) I get the whole thing of not eating anything that’s less than delicious. But there is something a wee bit spoiled about refusing to eat something that’s probably not super yummy because it’s shrink-wrapped and it won’t be as heavenly as Panda Express (which still stumps me). Maybe it’s because I’ve been to a lot of third-world countries where a lot of the people don’t have this privilege of choosing what and where to eat. At the end of the day, it’s just nourishment. We’re lucky enough to be in a position where we can make choices. End soapbox.
So, Zach, I really think you shouldn’t have chickened out on the bet.
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That Fork was empty…….and i think thats anastasia sat next to him.
yes
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good to see that these midtown lunchers are open to new type of cuisines. that’s the reason for coming here to the site, right? good for you Matt.
and hell yes this is going to encourage us to skewer future midtown lunchers!!!! yeah!!!!!!!
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“If I can change, and you can change, everybody can change!”
-Rocky Balboa, Rocky IV -
@ Boo – I can take people making fun of me for not eating the sandwich… but I’ve got to respond to your comment.
“Maybe it’s because I’ve been to a lot of third world countries where a lot of the people don’t have this privilege…”
Are you freaking joking? This is your defense of a shrink wrapped, pre-processed sandwich sold by a Times Square drugstore? I should eat this because we’re lucky to live in the one of the richest countries in the world? That is just stupid. By that rationale, I shouldn’t say anything tastes bad on this website. I should just be happy we have access to it?
Panda Express is one of my guilty pleasures… I admit it. And there’s no defending it. But at least it tastes good. I didn’t eat Walgreens because I knew it wouldn’t taste good. Make a fresh sandwich in your drug store, and wrap it in shrink wrap and I’ll eat it. Pump something full of preservatives and ship it across country to be eaten two weeks after it was assembled? No thanks. You want to find something to be pissed about in this country, there it is.
I agree with you that we should be incredibly happy living in this country… and I have done plenty of food traveling to countries much poorer than this one, that has made me very appreciative of what we have access to. But eating a sandwich from Walgreens doesn’t support that thinking in any way. Personally I would rather eat at the carts and restaurants run by people who came from these third world countries (and send money back to their families there), then buy a shrink wrapped sandwich from Walgreens.
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@ Zach — Unless I’m mistaken, didn’t you agree to eat a Walgreens sandwich during a bet? I’m not saying you should eat the sandwich of your own free will when you have lots of other great things to choose from. But to go back on your words because you don’t want to eat a shrink-wrapped processed sandwich is kind of lame. It’s not like we’re asking you to eat what Andrew Zimmern ate on Bizarre Foods last night. To be perfectly honest, your vehemence of your disapproval of the Walgreen sandwich sounds a bit petty. Then again, that’s my opinion, and it’s your site and your body and you will choose what to do. But I think there are a lot of people on this site who would love to see you eat the sandwich and give feedback.
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I would *gladly* eat every single thing that Andrew Zimmern has eaten on Bizarre Foods, over eating the Walgreens Sandwich.
I considered going an eating it to shut everybody up, but now- you know what. I’m taking a stand. I’m NEVER eating that sandwich. It’s not about being worried that I’ll get sick (I’m sure I won’t) or even caring whether or not it tastes good or not. It’s about knowing- without even trying it- that it is nothing that any self respecting Midtown Lunch’er would ever want to eat.
I’ve said it a million times, and I’ll say it again… if they made the sandwiches fresh in the Walgreens- (or even somewhere in New York state!!!) I would gladly give them a chance. But why would I try a sandwich that was made in Boston two weeks ago, shrink wrapped and shipped to Times Square? In what bizzarro world that be something that *anybody* would ever want to eat? Blondie and Brownie and Wined and Dined both tried the sandwiches and agreed they would never go back. I think that is plenty of “feedback” for anybody who is truly interested…
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Zach-I’m glad you hold strong to your food principles, and I completely agree
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Zach, sorry if it seems like I’m picking on you but I’m not trying to. So if we challenge you to eat what Zimmern ate last night, would you do it? He drank a lot of blood from different types of animals and had some sour milk. I think it’s hard to get the sour milk as we don’t know what conditions the souring took place. But it’s not as difficult to get the blood.
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Once again I have to say that you are just the tastiest thing east of the Mississippi. Put a little spicy thai sauce on you and I would just eat you up. Yummmmmy. Matt. Ohhh. Matt. Ohhh. Hope to see you this summer big daddy. (Ladies dont THINK of touching my man! If you do I will wrestle you skinny bi@atches to the ground and make you sorry your mama ever gave birth to you on the upper east side).
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You aren’t eating w/ your tie flipped over your shoulder, so you cant be a total d-bag. I would like to know why there is a Thai place on every corner in Hells Kitchen. Wondee Siam has like 4 w/i a block of each other. It’s insane.
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I just took a quick inventory inside Zach’s underoos and found a set of two ginormous big brass balls. After months of dancing around the Walgreens sandwich like it was kryptonite, Zach has thrown down the NEVER gauntlet. Good on ya!
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Eat the fucking sarnie.
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@Dubbinbklyn — it’s a homo thing. Our people need to stay trendy, spicy, and skinny or we won’t get laid.
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Actually, Wayne, I never portrayed DocChuck – rather I was the hamster, the blow-up doll, and the wife
Count me in the front ranks of the fight to see DocChuck banned from this website, as he recently was (implicitly) from a NY based beef-oriented blog
On the Walgreen’s sandwich – really, just humor on my part – noting the similarities between Matt’s original refusal to partake in Thai food and subsequent reversal to the whole Zach@Walgreen’s deal. I could care less if Zach ever eats that sandwich – I want him spending his time talking about the GOOD stuff, not the crap
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Dude, get some sleep! Put down the crack pipe. Those bags under your eyes are lethal.
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Now that the Walgreen’s issue has been put to rest, I think the second most important thing we can all take away form this discussion is: Matt needs to take Goats out for Indian food.
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HA! Fred, that’s damn funny!
Yes, I stand by Zach and his objection to the sandwich made outside of new york (or the damn boroughs) , totally prepackaged consumer waste. Bleh.
Matt you did good. Also congrats on putting yourself out there. Most people don’t have the balls to be profiled (Rhino Penis I’m looking at you!)
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Eating that shrink wrapped sandwich would be contributing money to an empire that is the middle finger to Third World countries. Why? Because it’s an utter waste of food. No one buys it, and it’s tossed out by the dozen at expiration to make room for more crap sandwiches (I’ve walked by bags of that “deli” stuff from various drug stores/grocery stores at night). And it in no way compares to Panda Express. Having worked at one, I know that the food doesn’t come shrink wrapped, pre-packaged, hyper processed, and frozen. They make it fresh, albeit fried by the bulk, on premises, because it’s more cost-efficient. That’s why some stores taste better than others. There are humans, not machines, who make it.
I’m on Team Zach for this one.
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Please Mama….don’t call me rhino penis.
Giggle.
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Rudy is the anti-rhino-penis.
a.k.a. Irish
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WWRPD?
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As far as I am concerned, it is the job of some Boston lunch blogger to eat that Walgreen’s sandwich. It wasn’t made in Midtown, or New York City, or even New York State, so it really doesn’t qualify as a Midtown Lunch.
In fact, I think we should take all those sandwiches back to Boston and dump them in the harbor (after removing the shrink-wrap, for the sake of the dolphins and seagulls).
Also, is Boo a Travel Channel lurker shilling for Zimmern? What gives?
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No, I have nothing to do with the Travel Channel. In fact, I don’t work in the entertainment industry, period.
My issue is that Zach AGREED to eat the sandwich but took it back because of it being prepped somewhere else and having it being shrink-wrapped. If you make a promise, you should keep it. It’s not like there were maggots in the sandwich.
And just because something isn’t made in Midtown doesn’t mean that it doesn’t qualify as a Midtown Lunch. Baja Fresh and almost every large chain out there don’t make a lot of their foods in Midtown. They just heat it up. And Treats Truck doesn’t prepare their treats in Midtown but sell it in Midtown. By your logic, Treats Truck shouldn’t be on this site either. And neither should all the reports of the stuff in the Financial District.
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My only wish was that he went to the newer Pams Thai location on 47th which is bright and hip inside where as the original is a little dumpy looking!
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Last time I was at Pam Thai, it smelled like cleaning fluid which kind of turned me off. Personally, I think Wondee Siam would have been a better bet. But the important thing was that he got over his prejudices and tried something new. Bonus for liking it.
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My dearest Matt:
You won’t find me falling all over myself patting you on the back for finally trying Thai food. It’s really nothing to crow about and the fact that you are indeed crowing about it is a bit pathetic in my humble estimation.
You do clean up well, I will grant you that. That tie is peachy with the crisp white shirt. You must be getting out of the basement more. ;-)
Now please for the love of God lay off Zach and that revolting Walgreens “sandwich.” No one — not even McBeagle, wayne or my dear colleague “ben” — should be forced to compromise their health and well-being (including mental wellbeing) simply because they made a “promise,” so-called, to a bunch of weird people they don’t even know personally. Least of all Zach. The man is allowed to change his mind to protect his and his family’s future.
Zach: if you are still collecting grievances, I would like to lodge one against “boo” and anyone else who persists in bringing up that damn sandwich. Thank you.
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for the record, i was not embarrassed to be seen with matt, rather i didnt want to be subjected to ridicule… matt is a very talented & sensual eater.
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Sounds like some more sensuality in Matt’s immediate future, eh?
woo hoo!
Perhaps we should find someone else to take Goats out for some good Indian food……how about Rhino Penis?
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It is so hard to say “I hate x cuisine” because I hate these dishes from it. Many cuisines are so diverse, its hard to imagine someone not liking anything from it. Plus, for South East Asia and India, the sample in NYC is hardly complete.
Casting my vote for Most Improved Luncher, 2009.
Excellent work. If we commenters can make even one life richer and more gluttonous through our ritualized patterns of abuse, then it has all been worth it.