Gai Chicken & Rice — Restaurant in New York

I'm biased about my chicken rice, coming from Southeast Asia, but this place is a total gem. The rice dishes are really satisfying, and if you need the carbs, this place has it! Lightly salted aromatic rice, cooked with a light hint of ginger. I would have preferred a little more salt and ginger, but that's the biased side of me speaking. If you are not that carb hungry, ask for a substitution, "light on the rice, more veggies instead!" And if you're a weenie, and your want to skip the rice, there's the chicken salad bowl. It comes with corn, so you're not entirely carb free. Steamed chicken is as classic as it comes. The steamed dark meat chicken it's nicely de-boned, which is great. The steamed chicken rice is banking on using the sauce to pack in the flavors. But the flavor is sadly where I'm docking a star for disappointment. The ginger chili sauce isn't actually "ginger chili" unfortunately. It's sweet, it's mildly spicy, but it's not ginger-y, if that's even a word. It is so heavy on the garlic, not so impressionable on the ginger, and being Thai (or south east Asia in general), what respectable sauce made of "chili" does not include bird's eye chili? Maybe it's just that batch of "ginger chili" sauce. The roasted chicken was spot on with the Thai flavors, with the sauce hinting the use of fish sauce for the salt and umami. If you're doing take out, eat the roast chicken fast, because you don't the stream to ruin the crispy skin. The truffle parm fries is... overwhelming. It's not the portion size, but the flavor. I can down a large fry from any fast food place, hands down, but the truffle flavor gets to me, as much as I love it... I just can't bring myself to finish the entire thing because that overwhelms me. You just have to share it. Some people might like it, so I suppose it's subjective. The fries are oh so crispy, seems like it was double fried, or coated with very light batter. You gotta consume this quickly because when it gets soggy, the grease on soggy surface is your consequence. Your fault for not finishing the fries...

If I could leave 0 I would. I have been eating here for years and never had an issue. Today on 2/10/2022 at 1:30pm, I went to pick up my food and a man behind the counter stops me and asks for a confirmation number. There is no confirmation number when you order on RITUAL. It is just a name. He refused to provide me my order unless I had the confirmation. It’s my food that I already paid for. I walk into get a closer look at the numerous orders they had displayed to point to the one that is mine. He then raises his voice and asks me to step back. He asked me why I am stepping up to the area where people pick up food? I said there’s no sign or anything that says I can’t walk here and said sorry. He then lowered his mask to start yelling at me. And for the remainder of this conversation his masked remained at most half on. This individual is handing our food, and for the sake of yelling at me, he is endangering others in this establishment? I told him I’ve picked up my order no problem with just the name before , and he states he is a part owner of the store and this is how it works. Again, there is no confirmation number when you order on RITUAL. I then ask for his name and he tells me. Don’t worry about that, I’m not your friend, please leave. If he is part owner, why would he not provide his name? Absolutely ridiculously poor service and a waste of...

I have been waiting for this shop to open since I heard of the new project of Chef Chat from the famous Fish Cheek. And today, while walking back to the office from a project site along 3rd Ave, I saw people holding a bag with the Thai alphabet “ก” -Gor Gai. I suddenly realized that the shop I have been waiting must already be opened. So, I stopped by and saw a lot of people in the shop. There was a sizzling sound of fried chicken - yes, they freshly fried them. It is a self-ordering, so I walked to the POS station and place the order, Fried Chicken Over Rice - my favorite- via their POS system - very easy and simple. But since this might be new to many Thai regular, there are also a couple of staffs waiting to assist you. Waiting for less than 5 mins, I got my order. Oh, I have to tell you that if you would like to take away, you can grab a bag from the counter. If not, there are a few seating available for dine-in. I got back to the office about 10 mins later and was afraid that my chicken would not be crispy. But no, they did a good job in having the chicken still very crispy when I got to the office. Now the best part, the soup is amazing. The chicken is great, could have use a little bit more seasoning -but there is a sweet chili sauce with it so it’s enhance the flavor. The rice is good. Price $11.95+taxes ...great value for a very great...