This is really spicy look at that
While Los Angeles has the first and largest Thai town in the U.S.
New York City has a growing Thai community
So in the last decade or so Elmhurst Queens
has become New York City's Thai town You can get a lot of different regional Thai
cuisine. We're gonna take you on a massive food tour here in the Thai town of
Elmhurst. We're gonna film this over a few days because we got a lot of spots to
show you. Two major areas we're gonna start here on Woodside Avenue.
A day like today can't do any better than noodle soup. Might get a drink there to warm up
It's a cool place, these interiors are
So I'm in their bathroom right now - coolest bathroom ever
The boat noodles which has pork blood vinegar sliced pork pork liver from the
rice noodles, we got fish ball too - oh man smell so good. Let's take a big bite with the broth. Really taste
that pork blood, it's so good it's not overwhelming it's just enough in there
it's got a nice kick and it's got a tanginess from that vinegar. Ohh it's so good
Now we got the tom yum as well. It's got minced pork,
it's got sliced pork it's got a big piece of pork liver we got the fish ball
we got the noodles, we got the cilantro (sorry, Jumi) and we got the peanuts
Nice spicy kick, I love the minced pork, I love the peanuts too, gives it a crunchy
texture. Also have the little spice caddy here, you can make a spicier so I'm
gonna add some chili flakes. There's also fish sauce, there's vinegar, sugar. You can
doctor it up however you like. There's so much flavor in this broth some of the
best and this is weekend only. It's 5 bucks a bowl you can't go wrong here
You can get your drinks you can have a beer with it too - why not?
Next restaurant that we're heading to specializes in Isaan cuisine. Isaan is
the largest region of Thailand. It's on the Northeast side it borders Laos. So
there's some similarities to Lao cuisine here the use of herbs, there's a lot of funk here
You're not through see as much curries it's a very unique and delicious spicy cuisine.
We got an awesome combo here. So you can get a combo that comes with the main dish, comes with
a papaya salad and another side so you get three dishes. We had to go with
the papaya salad that you can get at Hug Esan. Som tum plara
Plara is like a fermented fish paste also in Lao cuisine it's called padaek.
You can smell the funk. This is more of a salty type compared to the sweet
Let's try some
So if you're used to more of the limey sweeter Thai papaya salads, this is
definitely not that. Totally opposite. You get that funky fermented fish, you get salty
You get the long beans, the Thai eggplant this nice not too sweet so
it really takes in that fish flavor. Good stuff
Alright so we got this famous grilled chicken it's called gai yang. It's popular
in the Isaan region. It's grilled thigh meat. Got the crispy skin on the top and fried garlic
That chicken is so well marinated, got that crispy skin which really takes it to the next level also have
the sauce on the side that jaew sauce. Put a little of that on top.
That jaew sauce gives it a little spiciness a little
tangy a little funk from the fish sauce a little toasted rice powder so this is a really
a flavor bomb with all the herbs and spices. It sounds very simple it's a
grilled chicken but it's much more than that
Arguably the important part of the meal is the sticky rice. It
comes here in the bamboo container. We've seen this from our friend who makes Lao
food and gotta just grab a piece with your hand.
This is probably what we're most excited about is the dill soup
We love dill and dill we've had a lot in Lao cuisine and others so we saw it on the
menu here we knew we had to order it. So it comes in a lot of different veggies
It's a dark thicker broth. We actually chose chicken feet which goes well with this.
You also have the Thai eggplant, two types of mushrooms, pumpkin in here too.
Let's take a sip of the broth.
Very intense flavor. It's kind of a thicker broth, it's darker. So much going on in here
And then you get those big generous heaps of dill. Could eat dill all
day long. Let's take a big bite of that
That dill is just so refreshing. Dill is one of the most refreshing flavors
you can ever taste. This chicken feet has been soaking in this broth. Can make it
even more tender than it already was when it arrived. Let's take a little bite of that
It's so tender and you get all that cartilage. You could get this with the pork ribs, but we
wanted to go with the chicken feet. We don't always eat it but it's delicious
when we do and it works really well with the soup.
We're here in a place that used to be a supermarket now turned into a food court.
Our favorite stall here at Hong Kong Food Court it's called Kin Khao. Here you could get three
different dishes over rice for ten bucks and they don't skimp on the portions
either. Just look at that. That is just so much food on here. Got the three dishes so we got
Panang curry with pork. Southern yellow pork rib curry. Another southern Thai
dish - dry yellow curry with minced pork and sator bean aka stink bean aka petai
There's so many different names for it, but it's delicious. We got the
Thai tea especially because we heard some of these dishes were gonna be spicy, they look spicy
so you always need a nice creamy cool drink to go with it. We're gonna start
with the spiciest. I'm gonna start with this pork rib curry very tender you can
taste that coconut milk the yellow is probably from some turmeric and you
definitely taste the lime leaves in here very fragrant dish and then you also have the
bamboo shoots to go with it as well adds a little tanginess to it and a little
crunch. Really nice dish here, not one you can easily find in New York. That minced
pork right here look at that.
That is really spicy, I just had a bite of that and wow it's funky and spicy which is really good.
Alright let's do it. So got it all together here got it with that stink
bean aka sator, let's take a bite. That is really really good.
This explosion of flavors in that first bite. The lime leaves really come out the chili
the curry paste. I love that it's a dry dish just packing so much flavor in there
with the minced pork and that sator bean adds that little funky I love that
flavor of sator bean.
Our third and final dish on this plate is the Panang curry with pork.
Panang curry is one of our favorite Thai dishes around whenever we see it we
usually order it so we're happy they had it at the steam table today. So this one
comes with the pork (that is very good). Yeah it's gonna coat that rice so
perfectly so that's that's the rice you're gonna want to eat out of this
plate is the one that's covered in this coconut milk curry. So let's take a bite
see how it stacks up. Love that this stall uses a lot of lime leaves. We're huge fans
of lime leaves and it comes out in this Panang curry. All good Panang curry we've
had in New York always has a good amount of lime leaves and this one does not
disappoint. It's light spice, not too much. Very manageable and that coconut
milk balances out well. It's not too saucy and the pork itself is tender, well-cooked,
awesome.
The beauty of being in a place like this, like a Thai town is that you have
restaurants that specialize just in one thing. It's like you're in a street stall in
Bangkok
We had an amazing time when we went to Thailand been a couple times can't wait
to go back, love the food.
Staff meal staff meal. It smells so good.
So here we got the stewed pork leg over noodles. The reason we got it over noodles
instead of rice because that sauce is gonna seep right into those noodles and
it's got this nice skin on it you can smell the flavors. You can smell that
star anise come out. And it also comes with a side of leafy Chinese broccoli. And you
also have a hot sauce here we're gonna see what the hot sauce tastes like. And their
crispy pork here is so good that we had to get a side order of it why not?
I love the flavors in this stewed pork leg you got that five spice and
star anise. It's really juicy really tender meat to go with it and we have
this garlic hot sauce on the side as well a little tangy little vinegary
to go with it to add a little kick. Awesome flavor here
Moo Thai food that we went to that specializes in pork it's the same owners
but here they specialized in just one dish. That dish - khao man gai
This one dish only restaurant was written up by New York Times.
Let's go eat more.
So we got the only thing you can get. The only difference is here
they ask you what size. We just got the smaller size, been a lot of eating
So it's the khao man gai. So khao is rice, gai is chicken, so it's poached chicken and the rice
especially has got the chicken fat and it's got extra flavor we're gonna dig into
that. You got on the side they always give you some liver and gizzard but we
actually asked for extra liver. Jumi's a liver lover and
I enjoy it too so let's dig in. Just gonna try the rice first
The rice smells so gingery
This is awesome. If you love the flavor of ginger, this rice for you. I certainly do.
Now gonna go with the chicken before we add sauce, taste the chicken by itself
Very simple, it's tender just a poached chicken it's really nice got a nice
flavor some of the skin on it but really the star of the show is that rice that
ginger rice is amazing. And that creamy liver - let's go.
Two, three, four, five. There's five Thai restaurants on this one block stretch here on Broadway
between Britton Avenue and Pettit Avenue, that's incredible
I don't know that's even the case of anywhere else in New York besides the
other side of the Thai town here in Elmhurst. Wow this is the place to be for
Thai food in New York City