Thai in Philly

[Andrew Fenton]

Another delivery order from Plan Eat Thai.

- Thai spring rolls. These are the ones to get: NOT the regular ones! Bigger, crispier and tastier.

- Drunken noodles were pretty darn good. Like all noodles, they'd be better eaten right away. But from what I've heard, the restaurant itself is pretty grim... I guess I'll just suck it up and stick with pretty good-but-suboptimal delivery.

- Masaman curry is CRAZY. It's a dry curry- only a little bit of sauce- with golf ball-sized chunks of beef and potato, plus some cabbage and asparagus. It's like an Irish stew with coconut milk. It's good, but not much like other masaman curries I've had.

[philadining]

I know this doesn't really help you Center City dwellers, but I've been getting very good Thai food in Phoenixville, at Thai L'Elephant. Not quite as vivid as the Thai food that seems routinely available on the west coast, but still very enjoyable. It seems significantly better when eating there, as opposed to take-out, I'm not entirely sure why.

You guessed it: www.thailelephant.com

Also, I suppose it's stretching the definition of "Thai food" a little, but we had a "Jungle Chicken" at Rangoon recently, which was essentially a very citrus-y Thai green curry. Totally delicious.

Now I gotta go try that Masaman curry at Plan Eat Thai, that sounds awesome.

[brescd01]

I tried Plan Eat Thailand tonight based on this thread and except for a promising Tom Yum, it was pretty bad.

[KatieLoeb]

I tried Plan Eat Thailand tonight based on this thread and except for a promising Tom Yum, it was pretty bad.

←

What else did you order?? All the things I've tried were at least decent, if not stunningly delicious. Did you order delivery or eat at the restaurant?

[brescd01]

I got delivery, and exactly the dishes you recommended. Without getting into an authenticity argument (which I will lose every time since I have never been to either Thailand or eaten good Thai in LA), it just did not taste good.

Just so you know where I am coming from, I find your beloved Szechuan Tasty House wildly inconsistent and in any event unrefined. I would rate it 6/10. Chung King I would rate 7/10. I just found a szechuan restaurant in Trenton (where I work) that I would rate 9/10.

The best Thai I have had here is Erawan, which I have also found inconsistent, perhaps due to te change of owners I read about in this thread.

Edited January 12, 2009 by brescd01 (log)

[KatieLoeb]

David:

Taste is the most subjective of all the senses, I think, so if you think Plan Eat Thai is horrid, by all means don't order from there again. Clearly my mileage has varied from that assessment and I've been satisfied, if not floored by my experiences with their food. I will undoubtedly continue to order from there until such time I find something better that will deliver to me. I do agree that there are no 10's for Thai in Philly. I haven't had the pleasure of visiting Lotus of Siam in Las Vegas, but it's pretty high on my list of restaurants I wish to visit someday and will probably be the yardstick by which all other Thai will be measured afterward. Meanwhile, Princeton is too far to be functional for me. I'll continue to keep trying to find better Thai in Philly. I haven't been back to My Thai at 22nd & South in quite a while, but I do recall always enjoying the food there. Maybe it's time I make a revisit next time the urge for Thai food strikes me and see where it falls in the spectrum of mediocre to good that we have at our disposal.

[brescd01]

No, taste is objective and you are wrong and guilty for my stomach ache. And you cannot order from there anymore.

[percyn]

...

I haven't had the pleasure of visiting Lotus of Siam in Las Vegas, but it's pretty high on my list of restaurants I wish to visit someday and will probably be the yardstick by which all other Thai will be measured afterward. 

Katie, how's next Tuesday?

Seriously though, while Lotus of Siam is pretty good, it still does not compare to the restaurants and especially the street food in Bangkok.

For those in the Suburbs, Thai L'Elephant that Philadining suggested or Thai Orchid in Blue Bell are your best bets.

Cheers

Percy

[KatieLoeb]

Fuel up the private jet, my friend...

Seriously though, I've been told by folks whose palates I respect that Lotus of Siam is as good as it gets in the Continental USA. That is definitely worthy of a trip of and by itself. Since I don't gamble, a trip to Vegas would be all about eating and drinking anyway, with perhaps some brief respites for sunbathing by the pool and seeing a show.

What we really have to do is convince someone to do Thai food at that level here in Philly. Why is this a cuisine that has gotten such short shrift here? Same thing for Greek food. There are a couple of places, but they're just mediocre or astronomically expensive. We're a major metropolitan area with a serious restaurant and food culture. What gives with some cuisines being ignored or mediocrity tolerated? That's a much better question, I think...

[brescd01]

There is a story here related to immigration patterns, that remains unexplored. The only substantive investigation along these lines I have ehard of is a wonderful video I saw on UTube by Jennifer 8 ____ (sic) about the history of Chinese Food in America.

[philadining]

I completely understand the appeal of food delivery, and am more than a little jealous of the options of city-dwellers. Pizza places are the only ones that will come to me out in the burbs... But I doubt you're ever going to get a reliable read on "objective" food quality from delivery. Sure, some restaurants, sometimes, can get your order to you so fast that it seems like they cooked it on the way, but many times, it's been waiting in the restaurant for some other orders to be put together, then bounced around the delivery vehicle, and who knows, maybe today you were last in line.

So we decided to check out Plan Eat Thai and eat there, to remove the variables of delivery efficiency. Well... that didn't really work, this is a purely take-out place. For some reason I thought that there might be a small table or two, but no, there's just a tiny lobby space, encased in bullet-proof plexiglass. There's no real sign, just Plan Eat Thai hand-scrawled on the doorway. In fact if I hadn't had strong recommendations from some people I trust, there's no way in hell I would have gone in there, it's pretty bleak looking from outside, and the block it's on doesn't inspire confidence either. So maybe delivery's not such a bad idea...

But we were there, and hungry, so we decided to order, and just eat in the car. We ordered a Masaman Beef and a Pad Kee Mow (drunken noodles) with chicken. I'm glad we decided to stick around.

The Masaman Beef was very good, and although it's not quite the same as what I consider the ultimate version, one I used to get on South Street years ago, it's close. This is clearly long-cooked, with large chunks of beef stewed until tender. The fact that they don't offer a variety of ingredients supports this theory: this is not just random veggies, random protein, splash of curry and coconut milk, this is something that takes a while to cook.

But then, this is the real world, and standing there in the lobby, we could see that they seem to have pre-made the stew, portioned it, and frozen it. They pulled a homemade-looking cube of something brown (not a commercial package) out of a freezer, and dropped it in a pan. It was taking a while to get the large chunks of meat to defrost, so don't expect this one too quickly! I'm not sure if this is always the process, or if they sometimes have a pot of it going and had just run out this time... In any case, the base of it didn't seem to have suffered much from its cryogenic phase, and it was perked-up with fresh vegetables and peanuts.

The meat was a little stringy, but actually very tender and flavorful. As Andrew mentioned, it's more like a beef stew than the sliced-meat versions. There were nice big chunks of potato (whose texture had actually degraded a little, getting mealy from the freezing, but it wasn't tragic) cabbage, broccoli and peanuts in a very tasty masaman curry. I'm not sure the curry flavor itself was significantly more interesting than others around town, but the whole package was better than most, from the long-slow cooking of the beef.

The Drunken Noodles were not as basil-infused as most versions I've had. What it was infused with was spice! We'd asked for it spicy, and I'm happy to report that they'll give it to you hot! The noodles had a great texture. This type of rice noodle is especially susceptible to getting gummy when sitting around, so I'm sure this benefitted from our eating it pretty promptly. Although we immediately started sweating from the level of chile heat, it was hard to stop eating it, the flavors were so seductive.

So, this place is a bit of an oddity. Although I only tried two things, they were both quite good, and especially good fresh and hot from the kitchen. But you can't eat there, and eating in your car parked outside is not always that attractive of an option, so you might have to get delivery, or at least take out, and take you chances on it not being as good as few minutes later.

Here's hoping they can move up to a proper restaurant with tables sometime.

Edited January 27, 2009 by philadining (log)

[brescd01]

Ordered from Erawan last night. Oy vey. Is there room on that shuttle to Vegas?

[mattohara]

I'll note again that I'm far from an authority on Thai food, but we hit Cafe de Laos on 11th and Washington a few nights back and I thought everything was excellent.

Has this place been written off by everybody?

The atmosphere is also really nice. The service could step up a notch and give enough glasses for wine, replace your flatware with each course, etc. I don't mind that stuff too much though. The real complaint is with the menu, which is a mess.

[mrbigjas]

i certainly haven't written it off. i really like the food there. but i have no idea about authentic stuff, except what i've made out of hot sour salty sweet.

[philadining]

I had focused on the Laotian stuff when I was there, and thought it was fine, but not all that exciting. I preferred Vientiane for that stuff. But people have told me that their Thai food is quite good, I just haven't gotten around to checking it for myself. But your post makes me want to...

[philadining]

We might need to stop whining about the state of Thai food in Philly, at least if we're willing to trek out to Manayunk...

For some perverse reason I still haven't made it to Chaaba Thai out there, but I finally visited their offshoot called Mango Moon. This was originally designed as a casual, pan-Asian, bar-snack kind of place, but they've recently re-focused more on food one might find in Bangkok street markets. The menu hasn't changed a lot, many of the original items are still there, and the focus is still on (not all that small) small plates. But there are also plenty of things that are basically entree-sized if you want to have more of a conventional large plate of food, rather than grazing on several things.

The menu at at www.mymangomoon.com is a little out of date, but it's close...

We started with the Northern-Style Sausage (Sai Auh) which is not as sour as some versions I've had, but was the best I've ever tasted, with a nice assertive char making the outside nicely crisp. The light was a little too low for my iPhone, so it's not a beautiful shot, but even so, it might communicate how delicious this sausage was...

There's another sausage on the menu that I want to try too. I'm pretty psyched about any place with two types of sausage on the menu. Our server was kind enough to include samples of their pickles and cucumber salad, both of which were very good, and great accompaniments to the sausage.

We also had what they call Stew Beef Soup, which is a clear broth with large chunks of beef in it, a few vegetables, beansprouts, thai basil. The beef itself didn't look too promising, but was in fact wonderfully tender and tasty. And the broth was absolutely delicious, vibrant and a little bit spicy, we've decided that this will rank right up there with our favorite soups for the winter, especially when nursing a cold. That said, I'll eat it any time of the year...

The Spicy Pork Shoulder was just that - nicely grilled thin slices of pork neck in a thin tangy sauce, tossed with herbs. Really good.

We also had Grilled Duck with Red Curry. I didn't completely love the texture of the slices of duck breast, which was very tender, juicy and flavorful, but had a slightly springy feel, perhaps from a touch too much brining or marinating before grilling. But that was a small complaint, because the dish as a whole was quite good. The red curry had assertive levels of spice, balanced by the calming coconut milk and jasmine rice.

We accompanied that with a couple of cocktails, derived from interesting infusions they make in-house. Despite the risque and pun-filled names, the two we tried were rather tasty. There's also an interesting selection of sake, good wines and beers, and more original cocktails.

The space itself is quite attractive, as are the plates and bowls and platters, very hip and modern. The service was excellent - very friendly, informed and helpful.

This of course makes me want to try Chaaba Thai up the street too, but it's going to be very hard to resist this place. I like the style of food and the presentation, and I thought everything we had was delicious. Even better, they serve pretty late: regular menu until 9 or 10 or 11, depending on the night, a late-night menu after that...

So, quit complaining about Thai food in Philly, and get yourself to Manayunk.

Mango Moon

4161 Main St (Manayunk)

215.487.1230

Edited November 4, 2009 by philadining (log)

[KatieLoeb]

What he said. Really. It was all really delicious and the best Thai food I've had in Philly so far. The soup was possibly my favorite, although it would be difficult to choose only one favorite from what were all very perfectly seasoned and cooked dishes. The pork was pretty awesome too. Service was friendly and well informed and the tableware was really beautiful. I'd like to have it at home, in fact.

Selina, our lovely hostess, was very helpful in explaining all the cool infusions and cocktails made from them from their well stocked bar. And there was good wine by the glass to be had as well. I had a $5 House White that was a Tuesday night special (in addition to $1 oysters on Tuesdays!) that turned out to be the very creditable Handly Gewurztraminer which paired perfectly with the food.

No more whining. They'll be seeing us again. Very soon, I suspect...

[rather be travelin']

It's my first post, so I figure I'll venture out on the limb of Thai food....

Hi!

So there's hope in Manayunk?? I am willing to travel for Thai food - there is a hollow place in my heart that's not been filled since I returned from Bangkok some two years ago. Although, I really do like Cafe de Laos. I stand by their green curry and migrate towards 11th and Washington as my safe haven when it's freezing and I want an excuse for a random bottle of cheap champagne. I once asked if they did sticky rice with mango and the waiter looked at me oddly for a minute before rushing off and concocting a beautiful plate of just that (off the menu). By no means the best I've had (maybe not even close) but the sentimentality of it and the sweetness of his gesture doubled my inclination to go back.

So...Manayunk? I really think it's time to buy a car.

Cheers -

Sarah

[KatieLoeb]

Sarah:

When SEPTA is actually running there's a train station in Manayunk at Cresson & Carson that wouldn't be too far a walk. I think it's the R6 that goes that way...

[mattohara]

Apparently there's an off-the-menu menu at Cafe de Laos on 11th and Washington. Guday and Ning told us about it *after* our meal there last night. I think there's some beef carpaccio and a few other things that are "not white-people food."

But *do* get the spicy duck salad and ask for it extra-spicy.

Edited November 18, 2009 by mattohara (log)

[tim e]

Reviving an old thread. I loved MangoMoon in March 2009, but haven't made it to Manayunk since. I'm finally heading back this weekend. Has anyone been lately? If so, are there any standout dishes? Thanks!

[KatieLoeb]

Tim:

Please update us and let us know how you found Mango Moon on this visit. All I need is an excuse to get up there...

[tim e]

Mango Moon was good. The standouts were the spicy bangkok wings (I almost ordered them for dessert) and the Northern Thai sausage.

We also had the shumai (which my friend loved) and the baby octopus salad and sides of cucumber salad and sticky rice. The octopus salad was one of my favorites the first time I went, so I was a little disappointed this time that it really lacked heat and the octopus was on the rubbery side.

In general I found everything lacking in heat, except maybe the wings. Quite a change from my prior visit (over a year ago). I wonder if the chef has dialed it down to appeal to the Manayunk clientele. The place was pretty full so maybe it's working. That said, the food was still very tasty. I would definitely go back to try a few different things but make sure to ask for it spicy.

[VictorFiorillo]

I've had good experiences at Little Thai Kitchen, which is in a surprising little strip mall in Cherry Hill. When they say hot, they mean it. There's also great South Indian vegetarian (including dosas) at Rajbhog and perfectly good Vietnamese at Pho Eden. Same strip. As for Thai in Philly, after I've finished a meal at most, I ask myself, Why didn't I just get Vietnamese?

A Little Thai Kitchen

1900 Greentree Road

Cherry Hill, NJ

856-489-1181

http://www.njthaikitchen.com

http://njthaikitchen.com/OnlineMenu.pdf

[philadining]

Thanks for that tip Victor. I feel like there must be good Thai food lurking around Philly somewhere, but even the "good" places seem hit or miss...

As for the surrounding area, FWIW, Thai L'Elephant has opened on the main drag in Phoenixville, at 301 Bridge St (at Gay St. where la Creperie Cafe used to be.) I've found that place (in its old location out in an obscure plaza) to be one of the more reliably good suburban spots for Thai food.