We love banana leaves because it's like you're unwrapping a delicious present every time
We're here at Chao Thai. It's one of the oldest Thai restaurants in the neighborhood. It's been here
about 15 years. It's one of the first Thai restaurants I really liked and enjoyed growing up.
Our first dish here we have the chu chee curry with soft-shell crab. Look at it it's all these shredded
lime leaves all over it. So excited to see this many lime leaves just shredded up. Let's get in here.
Nice orange curry the curry's so nice and
creamy it's not liquidy, doesn't have a heavy batter on it. It's very lightly
fried. The crab is fresh and those lime leaves are really what make this stand out.
The lime leaves make the flavor pop
This is not even on the menu anymore it's on the old menu
So this is chopped up fresh lemongrass with chopped red onion
there's a green birds eye chilies for some heat there's even some chopped up
ginger and there is a lot of chopped up lime wedges. So much
going on and get these big juicy shrimp. So let's take a bite with a lot
That's really all these flavors that hit right now. You've got the spicy chili that, you've got that
lemongrass that's very aromatic refreshing you have that sourness from
the lime rind in there you have the spicy ginger the sharp red onion. Wow! There
is so much going on it's marinated in a little lime juice too and it has these
juicy shrimp. What a unique dish. It's awesome. First time trying it. Won't be the last.
We've got barbecue beef This steak has been marinated, grilled.
We have a dipping sauce here. It's a chili tamarind dipping sauce. Let's take a bite. Sometimes they call
this dish "Tiger's Cry." So I don't know if it's gonna make a tiger cry, but it won't
make us cry, it's gonna make us smile.
The beef is tender you get a really nice flavor
from the grill in there it's well marinated too. But that
sauce really makes it pop you get that tangy tamarind got a little funk in there
too and the chili for the spice. BBQ beef dishes they may sound kind of
pedestrian when you first see it on the menu.
But, if you're at a Thai restaurant, you should definitely
try the barbecued beef dish. It's almost always gonna be good from our
experiences
This next dish is not one that we order very often. It's pad kee mao.
Many of you know it as drunken noodles. So it's the wok fried flat rice
noodle. It's got tomato, onion. We got it with
chicken, basil, egg. So big reason why we ordered it we had to get at least
one noodle dish in this video and Chao Thai is one I've eaten for many years I went
back when I was a kid when I first had come here and they do a great job with it.
First time having it in a while.
The rice noodles have that perfect "wok hei" the breath of the wok.
Adds a really nice flavor to it. They're perfectly chewy, have that Thai
basil coming in to give it a real pop the crunchiness from the onions,
red peppers. Eggs add a nice flavor to it too. When you have the chicken it also
has a bit of that wok hei on there. And then interestingly enough the tomato
Tomato is pretty unique that really switches up the textures even
temperature a little cooler than the rest of the dish
Alright the best way to eat iceberg lettuce
besides never is sopped up in this chu chee curry. Man you can't let any of this
curry go to waste
That's how you take some sad iceberg lettuce and take it to the next level.
There is just too many Thai restaurants in this neighborhood I don't think we can show
you all of it, but we're definitely gonna make the most. Absolutely, so there's so
many and there's so many different regional cuisines you can get here you
can get some Northern Thai from Chiang Mai. You can get Isan in the Northeast region
you get some Southern and you get some Bangkok street food you get all types in
this neighborhood that's the beauty of living in a Thai Town in Elmhurst.
This is a very concentrated area for Thai businesses especially restaurants so
there's about five or six Thai restaurants on this one block plus there's
a Thai prepared food store
The newest Thai restaurant in the neighborhood
That's right. It's called Thai Cook. Let's go
Look at that. You've got slinkies and tuk tuks
This place actually shares space with a Chinese hot pot.
This spot they actually don't have gas
cooking here so they have to use induction burners so it's like the
electric kind of hot plate style.
So they really make something out of
nothing. This is such a Queens kind of spot we've showed you momo's in the back
of a cell phone store this is a similar idea. Only in Queens can you find
this. Amazing.
And also very
recently they were written by New York Times. So it's awesome that the New York
Times, there's a column called Hungry City, they usually write up more of the
hole-in-the-wall restaurants like this one. It was actually written up by their
main restaurant critic Pete Wells. He gave them one-star. So one star is very
impressive you know. You may hear one star and think that's not. One star is very
impressive, especially for a restaurant like this in Queens a more low-key place.
So we're very happy for them. We came here a few weeks ago for the first
time really enjoyed it so we love seeing places get well-deserved recognition.
Alright, so first up we got something nice and light but it does not smell nice and light.
It's actually a steamed squid it's lime chili steamed squid. So you could smell so much
you smell lemongrass you smell the chilies you see all that cilantro (sorry
Jumi) you see these big red chilies you got this wedge of lime right here it's a
very nice way to start off very light and refreshing dish let's take a bite of this
The squid is so tender it doesn't have any fishy flavor it's very fresh you get
that beautiful lemongrass cilantro chili mix here's a little spicy a little tangy
from the lime. It's that refreshing cilantro flavor that's so good.
So we also got the yum pork liver. So take a whiff you could smell
the smell that toasted rice powder it seems a lot of crushed chili pepper here
chili powder lots of cilantro of course again red onions and what I really
notice here first is that the pork liver is sliced very thin
large pieces and we're pretty used to having the pork liver that's a little
thicker more like triangular shape square shape this one looks very
different very excited to try it. So it looks similar to a larb, but with a Thai Cook twist
Alright, time to take a bite. Smells amazing. Let's go
You get that creamy liver flavor. So if you love liver, it's the dish for you.
It's well-prepared. Get the nice crunchy texture from the toasted rice powder which I
love. I've always loved that texture. You also get the crunch from the red onions
and you get that sharp freshness of the cilantro. Oh man time to take some more bites.
Really nice dish here. Spicy, tangy, crunchy. It's got a lot going on here.
Cilantro lime dressing. I can do this.
If you hate cilantro like I am, it's good the lime cuts the cilantro bug soapy
taste which is really very important
We're here at Tea Cup Cafe for dessert and savory items. We're here of course for more savory.
So we got dessert here before in our frozen dessert video check out up
here above. We got an awesome Thai tea slush.
Here we ordered the pork larb.
So the pork larb has lots of ground pork but they're also very generous with the
slices of liver which we are really happy about. You can smell the lime juice here the
fish sauce. It's got a lot of crushed chilies and the toasted rice powder and
there's also cilantro in here. Man this is this is one of our favorite dishes here
from Tea Cup. So gonna go ahead and take a bite
Wow. We asked for it medium spicy, which is always a
roll the dice at this place because medium spicy could really be much hotter
So this actually is perfectly medium spicy. You really taste that rice powder, you
taste that tanginess from the lime, the funk from the fish sauce the chiles give
that nice spicy kick but that pork is just perfectly cooked
so nice minced it's juicy. I love the sauce and then you have the red onions here
for a little crunch. Oh it's delicious. Now let's have a bite of that liver
That liver is just so creamy and good. You can actually order a whole liver larb here
if you want but it's nice to have a couple different textures and types of
meats here so good. Of course they give you rice - what do you do with the rice? Eat your food with rice
So we're right at the epicenter of Thai town and this block right behind me and a
few blocks up they're closed - they're clothes during Songkran festival
We're right outside Khao Kang. It is one of the only two Thai steam table
in this neighborhood. It's one of our favorite places to eat. We're not here for the
steam table we're here on a weekend for a weekend-only special. We're gonna show
you what that is. We're really excited. So here's our weekend special that we're
telling you about. It's called "hor mok." So there's actually two types they sell
here. So if you're familiar with the Khmer dish fish amok sounds similar -
amok/hor mok - so this one actually looks much more like the Khmer version
so it is like a fish - steamed fish with a bunch of different spices and herbs in
here. This one is topped with the coconut cream. Let's take a bite. It looks really
good. So full of flavor in this little package here. So it's not a
fishy flavor you got the spicy chili you get some lemongrass in here you
definitely get the lime leaves you can see the shredded lime leaves on top you
get that coconut cream has a little creaminess to it not too spicy this one
it's so good you could eat like ten of these. It's amazing. So this is the other
hor mok. This one is really special because it's wrapped in banana leaves so
you know we love banana leaves because it's like you're unwrapping a delicious
present every time
This one has a lot of basil on top at first glance. This one's a little heftier
Let's take a bite. Wow this one has even more intense flavor than the other. Much
spicier you could taste that right away. Good thing we have our thai tea to go
with it. But the basil's very fragrant got a lot of the lime leaves very spicy.
But one of the big differences here you've actually whole shreds of galangal in here too
Wow that's another one you could just eat this all the time it's so good but
they only have it on weekends. So if you want it come Saturdays and Sundays call ahead
because it sells out fast.
We've come to the last stop which involves dessert.
Khao Nom we got a couple of sweets. They rotate their desserts, so sometimes they're
out of things. So we got coconut pudding and then we also got the steamed
purple yam so let's give it a shot
Really nice. So you get that layer of the coconut on top like a pudding. Then
inside is like a gelatin the pandan below. What like it's not too sweet it's a
little slight bit of saltiness. Very good. Very nice I like the desserts here are not
too sweet very refreshening after the spicy food we just had. Let's try this
steamed purple yam. It's topped with shredded coconut. Looks good.
The texture is kind of like gelatin kind of like nyonya kueh so let's see how it
tastes
You really taste that purple yam. Very strong purple yam flavor. Slight saltiness
on that shredded coconut adds a little crunch too. Wow it's really good also not
sweet and it's perfect. Just a slight touch of sweetness that's it
So Thai restaurants in Thai town they're highly concentrated so it's really hard
to do a food tour in just one day. So good thing we're on a Thai food
binge so we decided to film it, why not? Give yourself a couple more days. One day is
not gonna cut it. Your stomach will thank you. I think we just transported ourselves to
Thailand. Just kidding we're still in New York City. We're actually just a few
blocks away from the epicenter of the Thai town and there's a beautiful Thai temple there and it is amazing