Archive for 'Thai'

Pure Thai Shophouse is Now Serving Khao Soi

Pure Thai Shophouse FrontIs it possible to have too much of a good thing? Perhaps – but when it comes to Midtown lunches and good Thai food, I say go for the gusto. During my rave first look of Pure Thai Shophouse, luncher wayne inquired if they served khao soi, and I shared his admiration for the dish (at the time, they were not). However I recently stopped by Pure Thai for lunch, and noticed that they are now serving khao soi as a rotating daily special. Pure Thai has quickly become one of my favorite Thai joints in the city, and khao soi is easily my favorite dish in any Thai repertoire. As it turns out, too much of a good thing, is a great thing.
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Tom & Toon Brings Thai AYCE Buffet to NYC!

Tom and Toon Lunch Buffet

We somehow missed the opening of a new Thai restaurant, Tom & Toon (241 51st St. between 7th & 8th), which launched with little fanfare in August of 2010. Our oversight may have been appropriate, given the predictable narrative of the restaurant. There’s an un-extraordinary menu akin to its neighboring Thai brethren in the ‘hood, such as Siam Inn two store fronts down, or the overabundance of Thai joints up and down 9th ave. However, Tom & Toon shouldn’t be easily dismissed, for it is the only Thai restaurant that has an all you can eat lunch buffet in Midtown. At $11.95, it’s a bit over our $10 lunch rule, but we’ve always be willing to stretch the price boundaries to $11 for buffets.  So what’s another buck when something as rare as Thai AYCE is involved!?

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Pure Thai Shophouse Makes Me Never Want To Eat At Any Other 9th Ave. Thai Restaurant Again

Pure Thai Shophouse Front

Usually 9th ave is out-of-bounds from an ML perspective, and the opening of a new Thai restaurant in this area of town is hardly sensational – in fact, there’s no less than 15 Thai restaurants within a 4 block radius of the newly opened Pure Thai Shophouse. But after reading Grub Street’s opening report, and learning of the pedigree of Chef David Bank, who previously worked under Jean-Georges Vongerichten at the Mercer Kitchen, I decided that this would require an out-of-bounds journey. And boy am I glad I made that trip.

A meander down 9th ave in search of Thai sustenance can be overwhelming. One Thai restaurant might cater to customers who prefer to dine amongst garish bubblegum pink décor, while the next Thai venue offers an exclusive ‘secret’ menu to the knowledgeable few with an old copy of the Zagat guide or access to Yelp.com. All serve the same highly fungible crowd pleasing dishes of pad thai, drunken noodles, and curries in various earth toned colors. However, if you’re ever in doubt as to which Hells Kitchen Thai joint to pick for lunch, I’ll suggest that Pure Thai Shophouse is perhaps the only Thai restaurant worth visiting on 9th ave.

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Your First Look at Bai Cha, The Hell’s Kitchen SE Asian Street Food Stand

Bai Cha Exterior

I love seeing scrappy underdog restaurants pop up out of nowhere. Word-of-mouth publicity from readers of Midtown Lunch carries a lot more weight with me than slick advertising campaigns. So, yesterday, when we heard through the grapevine about a new (but slightly-out-of-bounds) restaurant that serves Southeast Asian street food, our interest was piqued. On paper and in concept, I was instantly sold – Thai inspired papaya salads, Malaysian satay skewers and roti’s and what’s that… a BANH MI? To borrow a quote from Anthony Bourdain, I would cheerfully “crawl naked across broken glass” for a good banh mi. It’s my absolute favorite food, ever.

I was so excited for the prospect of good Malay and Viet food, that I skipped a work happy hour (sorry co-workers that may be reading this) and voyaged over to 9th ave to get my banh mi fix. So do we finally have a bonafide banh mi in Midtown West?
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Siam Inn Returns With a Big Kra-Pow!

siam-thai

The best thing about restaurants in New York is that the turnover is high. Such a system lends itself to constant rebirths and many opportunities for us to try new restaurants. What is funny though is that sometimes you get restaurants that just change their name and all of a sudden the food is completely different? I present you restaurant 1 and restaurant 2 on Yelp. Different name. Different ratings. Exact same address and phone number. But at $8 for appetizer and entree as part of the lunch special, this really required some more investigation.

When I asked Zach about this place, he (surprisingly) got a bit excited.  Apparently Siam Inn was one of the first Thai restaurants he ate at when he moved to NYC, about 5 years ago, when they were on 8th Ave. btw. 51+52nd.  About 3 years ago they closed down and opened around the corner as Blue Chili, but the vibe went from homey to neon and glossy. The menu for the new spot says Siam Inn and the website for Blue Chili says it’s Siam Inn @ Bluechili. It’s confusing as hell really. But lets just get to the food because $8 lunch specials are what attracted me to this place in the beginning.

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Flatiron Lunch: Taan Thai Cuisine

Now that Downtown has its very own section of the site, what are we going to post on Fridays at 10am? Answer… how about a new column devoted to those lunches just south of the ML boundaries. Every week we’ll post about a lunch in Murray Hill south, Gramercy, Flatiron, and everything in between… or as we’ll call it from now on: Flatiron Lunch.

_MG_8512 - Version 2

Thai food restaurants are few and far between in Midtown South. Up until a week or so ago, the only option I knew of near my office was Lemongrass Grill (on 34th btw. Lex+3rd). Every several months I end up there with co-workers and we all get the exact same dish we always get and then bathe it in the various sauces that are on hand and hope for something more interesting than usual (it rarely succeeds.)

Then, the other day, I spotted Taan Thai Cuisine. Actually, I spotted the signs for JoeyThai, presumably the previous restaurant in this spot. Apparently, no one thought it necessary to bother changing signs- but  I’m fine with that because the food is a vast improvement over the other Thai options in the area.
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Chai Thai Has a Decent $7 Lunch Special

chai-thai-011

Even though my palate is not well educated on Thai cuisine, I’ve so far come to realize that Thai food sort of falls into the same pattern as Chinese food. On one hand, you have more Americanized Thai specialties like pad thai and pad see ew (aka something you’d get at A+ Thai.) Then you’ll get restaurants that’ll do the less known, regional dishes like khao soi (if you’re craving that, Talent Thai is the way to go.) Obviously pad thai can be very authentic and traditional, but in Midtown we would all probably just settle for a fairly decent tasting dish. When I walked by Chai Thai, on 8th ave and 55th, I was intrigued because it was packed. With a $6.95 lunch special, I decided to try that and a couple of other things on the menu.

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Olieng Makes a Pad Thai Worth Stepping Out of Bounds For

Olieng Thai

I love Pad Thai and I’m always on the hunt for a tasty and filling version of the classic noodle dish. Hells Kitchen has no shortage of Thai restaurants, but only one of them got the two thumbs up from veteran Midtown Luncher, Talida of Talida Bakes. Talida’s parents are both from Thailand and I’ve seen her in action ordering dinner for a dozen food bloggers at Sriprapai, so when she told me that Olieng was her go to place for real Thai style Pad Thai, I had to give it a try.

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Pam Real Thai Makes a Good Khao Soi

9th Ave. is just out of bounds for Midtown Lunch’ing purposes, but you know we’ll travel an extra avenue or two for the Northern Thai specialty khao soi!  And from the looks of it, the version at Pam Real Thai (on 49th btw. 9+10th) is the real deal!  Read all about it over on Food in Mouth>>

Related:
Talent Thai’s Khao Soi is the Bee’s Knees

A+ Thai Opens For Lunch Today

A+ Thai Place opens on 2nd Ave

A+ Thai is rolling out a $7.95 lunch today after opening over the weekend. Between 11:30 and 3:30, $7.95 gets you the entree only, but throw in another $2 if you want the appetizer-entree-drink combo. At first glance, menu items like the “Mega Ball dumplings” sound intriguing. Maybe we don’t need another pseudo-Southeast Asian place on the (far) East Side, but what we do need is a good one. Let us know how it is if you get there first.

Check out the lunch menu after the jump…

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