Pure Thai Cookhouse — Restaurant in New York

I’ve been coming for Pure Thai almost every months for couple years since after covid reopen. I love the food here and always highly recommended to my friends specially asian friends. Unfortunately, I had really bad experience with this waiter tonight. I knew I came late, after I sat down I immediately asked him what is the special salad today? He first pretended he couldn’t understand my questions, I had to repeat again and again…then he took my bubble tea away but I said I’ve been coming here and always bring my bubble tea but they never took my bubble tea away…He was saying he would have problems. (I had no problems with this) I went to the different room to see if there’s seat with different waiter, but the restaurant was pretty full, after I came back to my seat. I started ordering he keep acting he couldn’t understand my English…I understand English isn’t my mother language but I never having problems ordering food with waiter since I living in NY for 6 years. After I left I asked the front desk what the waiter name, they didn’t have problems with my English and immediately told me his name is Dou…. I will keep coming back, But I hope they can fix this.

It’s the first time I have not feeling welcome in this restaurant, usually the waiter remembers me and telling me what else I should try….

Ps. They saw my table has some empty plates not taking it away and just leave my main dish next to it and walk away, I had to organize the plates myself. There was a girl sat down next to me was 15-20 mins later than me, I had to asked different employees for the hosue spicy sauces, the waiter Dou gave her the house spice...

When traveling to cities I try my best to sit at the bar or near the kitchen to watch the masters at work preparing their art. I sat in front of the small noodle prep kitchen that you first see when coming in. I would highly recommend just watching, observing, and appreciating those who make our food.

The 2 master chefs who worked in the noddle cooking area played well off each other like Yin and Yang, one prepping and cutting while the other cooks and plates the noddles. The fluidity of the noodles being dunked into the hot water and then garnished with spices was quite artistic and engineered to perfection without wasting a single ounce of energy.

On this cold, rainy day I started off with an iced Thai Iced Tea which was delightful. And then I had an appetizer order of the Thai Curry dumplings which were delightful. To warm up my cold bones I had the Braised Duck Hand Made Noodles with 5 spice soy broth. The in house chili sauce on the side was so flavorful and brought each dish up a notch with a spicy flavor explosion. I also got 2 orders of their famous Crab and Pork Hand Made Egg Noodle dish to go. One for myself and one for my cousin that I brought back to DC with extra chili oil and it was still amazing 5 hours later!

All in all, this is probably the top 2 best Thai places I’ve been too, the other being Lotus of Siam (James Beard Award) in Las Vegas. Run,...

Oct 2019

Came back for lunch and got a seat at the counter. The noodles here come with a suggested noodle type on the menu, but you can select a different noodle when you order if desire.

I ordered the Pa-Yao Beef Noodles Soup this time. I couldn’t really taste any galangal or pandan flavor in the soup. It was also a little too salty for me. The vermicelli was way too thin for my liking. The soup comes with a generous amount of meat balls, pork slices, and braised beef chunks. I wish it came with a bit more veggies and less meat instead.

Service is great as always. The wait staff constantly checking in to see if I’m doing ok.

————— July 2018

A very cute small Thai restaurant on the border of Times Square. If you’re craving noodles, come here instead of Ippudo.

I ordered the Krabi Noodle soup. My favorite part of the dish was actually the rice noodle. It was perfectly cooked, just the right texture. I’m not a fan of the fish ball, though the thinly sliced fish cake was pretty good. The soup also come with 2-3 big shrimps and some...