9 replies to this topic

[SLBunge]

Had a great meal at Chai's Thai last night prior to the Colin Hay show. The place is tiny but does take reservations. No liquor license but bring in your own wine and they'll give you a bottle opener and glasses.

The menu is essentially Thai with some fusion but not enough to make me terribly uncomfortable.

The best single thing we had was the chicken laab salad. Ground chicken, scallion, red onion, lime and a great chili pepper heat that comes on late. Served with chunks of green cabbage and cucumbers.

I think the best entree might have been the pad see iew. Excellent wide noodles and perfectly cooked broccoli. The sauce tasted a bit of cocoa powder (in a good way) but the waitstaff confirmed that there isn't any in the dish. Mild and satisfying.

Four of us shared three appetizers, four entrees, and a salad and got out of there for $95 including tip. Even factoring in a couple of $15 bottles of wine it was incredibly cheap meal for the amount of food.

[prasantrin]

Have you tried Bangkok Thai Deli on University Ave? The food is very much like going to a Thai food court (and the ambiance is, as well--plastic lawn chairs and all unless they've changed the decor since last summer). They've got a white haw mok that's out of this world (different from the red type, but very very good). But be very careful about heat levels. If you ask for medium, it's more like the average farang's incendiary hot.

By broccoli, I hope you mean Chinese broccoli?

[mongo_jones]

i attended a birthday dinner last night at mango thai, apparently a sibling of chai thai. i was pleasantly surprised by the food, given the surroundings (i have the regrettable habit of engaging in cultural profiling at asian restaurants, you see). the servers (like much of the clientele) are of the hip variety which, along with the decor, had given me some pause, but our waitress offered "thai hot" among our heat level options, and while the things we asked for at that setting were not quite what i would describe as thai hot they were certainly much hotter (and yet balanced) than at the few other thai places i've eaten at in the cities.among the things my end of the table shared: beef larb (quite good, though more lettuce would be good), panang curry (good), a special of mahi mahi in some kind of green curry base (good), ginger roasted duck (blah) and pad kee mow (quite good).

they are also byob.

[SLBunge]

Had a very quick dinner at Mango Thai this past Friday and was not impressed.

The spring rolls with mango were flavorless and held way too much lettuce. Also, no crisp vegetables within to give them some texture. Really boring.

Chicken in red curry only had green and red pepper skis as the vegetable and, again, there was no depth at all to the thin sauce. It was ordered medium so I didn't expect much heat but lacking in flavor is not exactly what I expected.

The place was pretty busy at 6pm on a Friday. I suppose they pull in a sort of happy-hour crowd with the neighborhood.

[mongo_jones]

curiously, we had lunch with the parents at chai thai on saturday and i was less impressed with that meal than i was with the one at mango thai. the food seemed sweeter, and nothing was very hot despite our asking for it all thai hot. still better than the other thai places we've eaten at in the cities.

[mongo_jones]

perhaps we can make this a more general thread for thai food in the twin cities?

along with two friends we had lunch today at bangkok thai deli in st. paul (315 university). prasantrin had mentioned it some time ago and i only just got around to checking it out. based on our meal today it is pretty good but nothing amazing. there is a page of special dishes which are not run of the mill, and some of the appetizers too are unusual. we ordered the hor mok (a fish and curry custardy thing steamed in a banana leaf) and some fish patties with a nice dipping sauce to start. the hor mok was very good, the other was okay. for our mains we got a whole tilapia in red curry sauce from the special menu--the fish had been marinated and deep fried and then a very nice red curry sauce was poured over it. this was very, very good. just okay was a pork stir-fried with garlic. if the pork had not been over-cooked it would have been good. we also got some larb. their version is unlike any others i've ever had. for one thing it had strips of tripe in it. this was a point in its favour. however, it did not have the clean, sharp taste of all other larb i've ever had--instead it had a muddier, more pungent flavour that i couldn't quite place. it was good but not what i was expecting. a regional variation? who knows?

one of our dining companions cannot eat very hot food* and is also a little less adventurous and so we did not explore some of the more interesting parts of the special menu. a trip with slbunge is in order.

*we got everything medium and nothing was even remotely incendiary.

[prasantrin]

Maybe you need the secret password to get Thai medium spicy.

Was your haw mok white or red? I've only had their white, but I heard they do red, too, and I'm curious about their red.

Word on the street (or at least on Chow) is to try the pork neck dish aka Kaw Moo Yang Jim Jaew.

(Regarding spiciness, this is how we got extra spicy:

Us: We'll have the pad grapow moo and yum woo sen.
Server: How hot do you want it?
Us: Medium, not hot.

After trying our food
Server: How is it? Is it OK?
Us: It's very hot!
Server: Oh. I thought you were Thai.

Then he laughed at us. I think he wrote "medium hot" on his order pad. It would have been fine for my dad, but not so much for the rest of us.)

[mongo_jones]

it's possible, of course, that you're a lightweight when it comes to heat.

the hor mok we got was red. the waitress said they don't always have it as it's a pain to make in large quantities.

[prasantrin]

Definitely. My tolerance for heat lowered when I stopped eating home-cooked Thai food. But I'm not that much of a wimp. The heat level would have made my father sweat, but he could have handled hotter, I'm sure.

[mongo_jones]

chai thai seems to have closed. we stopped by today after a united noodles run and there were no signs of life; on the door was a final delivery attempt notice from ups of a package described as "payroll". ah well. i wonder if the st. paul outpost is still open.

eta: their website was still up, so i called to check. the message says they're closed for january but will re-open in february.