Keawjai Thai Restaurant — Restaurant in Tokyo

My absolute favorite Thai place in Tokyo!!!

The restaurant is quite simple looking, nothing fancy, just a pretty casual looking restaurant. But I keep coming back as much as I can, when I am in the neighborhood or even sometimes when I am far but when I feel like having GOOd Thai food... I actually wish I was their neighbors). The reason is that the taste of their food is just sooo perfect! Fresh, generous, spicy (carefully, spicy as in Thai spicy, so pick your dish wisely) and beautifully perfumed. My absolute favorite is the papaya salad (which they haved marked with 1 chili pepper but that I would have marked with 2 or 3 chili peppers depending on the day). I haven't been in Thailand very often but it tastes just as good as in my memories. In top of that, the service is really nice (the staff seems to have real smiles on their face, which is quite unusual in Tokyo), they never make any mistake and the prize is really reasonable. We paid 7000 for today's dinner for two people (2 beers, 1 tea and 4 dishes : papaya salad, chicken fried rice, garlic n black pepper shrimps, chicken and peanuts). Just one piece of advice, stick to the non spicy dishes if you can't deal with spicy... but...

I came here from a local recommendation who are also Thai. There was no wait and plenty of room. It was nice to hear the staff speaking Thai, so I knew this would be authentic food. The menu is large and has many options. I could have ordered enough for a family of 5 but I settled for kapow moo with fried egg and the tom yum goong soup. The food and service was good, the staff was friendly and seemed to enjoy being there. I would have given 5 stars, but I think the soup was missing lemongrass and lime juice.

They are popular with takeout and delivery options. I noticed more orders going out than there were people sitting in...

I went here three days in a row due to it being across from my hotel and thought it was nice inside — the noodles were decent if salty (as most things are in Japan). However it was my impression that the restaurant closes at 10pm (according to Google) which may have been incorrect; at 9:20 they said the kitchen was closed and declined to serve me a beer, then gave me my bill… which made me feel unwelcome. So I paid and left without finishing my food. Not a big deal, but to me it was unclear. Maybe they actually close at 9pm and I was overstaying, but they could...