Sala Thai — Restaurant in New York

In short: come here! They made the pad Thai of my dreams!

I saw this gem on my way to Equinox and the ratings impressed me. Grabbed two friends and tried their lunch: man, this place deserves all the raves.

Appetizer: Soft shell crab mango salad The summer-time special app with crispy batter fried soft shell crab, crunchy shredded mango, mixed green vegetables, cashew nut, cherry tomatoes and chili lime dressing. Everything mingled perfectly: I got the tangy, the sweet, the savory, and the texture. The soft-shell crab 🦀 has a thicker batter, and it grasps grease well so eating it alone was a bit too much fat-saturated. The mango and the dressing was the perfect carrier to offset the grease and to elevate the savory crab flavor to the next level.

Entrees Pad Thai Bolan The signature Pad Thai with prawns, bean sprouts, red onion, cilantro leaves, string beans, peanuts and beautiful egg net. It is not only visually stunning, but also taste-bud engaging. Some restaurants make the pad thai overly sweet yet this is not the case here. The peanut’s nuttiness, the veg’s savoriness, and the herbiness all come through with the perfect moderate level of sweetness. The eggs inside absorbed all the savoriness and delivered to my tongue along with the rice noodles full of wok hei. And the prawns🍤! Don’t let the visual fool you! There are a lot more shrimps hidden underneath the net inserted in the noodles. The shrimps bounce differently than rice noodles and that textural contrast is just riveting. This dish came to my dreams still after a week of tasting it.

Mieng Pla Pao (Grilled Branzino with Thai herbs) This dish has fillets of branzino wrapped in banana leaf served with sweet and spicy caramelized palm sugar chili sauce and black coconut sticky rice, which are also wrapped in banana leaves. Incredible flavors, especially with the sauce and the ginger. The dish doesn’t taste as they were grilled: they tasted more like they were steamed with the banana leaves. The sauce was on the side, and tasted sweet and slight spicy. The branzino, besides its own sweet flavor and slightly firm texture, absorbs the banana leaf’s aroma and Thai herbs, salivating still when I think of it. The bigger surprise was with the black coconut sticky rice. Not much coconut flavor but man the texture was surreal. The perfect chewiness and the bounciness dances on my tongue. We found the best way to eat it is to 1)dip the rice with the sugar chili sauce and 2)pair with some sliced gingers. Welcome to the new world my friends.

The lunch time is less busy and we were seated right away at 12ish without reservation. Food came fast and service was prompt. Then the restaurant got visually more busy (tables were mostly occupied inside). This place gets really popular at night so try to come early if you are without reservation. The interior decor is very Thai forward, and the space is much bigger when you go inside.

Generally a money-worthy, time-worthy Thai place that is both modern to the decor and warm to the heart. I have made it my official go-to on Grubhub for their pad Thai and Kea Mao. If you happen to be in the area, you shouldn’t hesitate to come if...

Very impressive and consistent all the way! Definitely worth Five stars! I was initially planning date night at Thai Villa but also remembered that this place was in my bookmarks and we stand a better chance of getting a reservation. Ended up to be an excellent decision and we had a fantastic dinner last night. From the reservation process to actually getting seated, the staff was warm and welcoming. They also gave us a good table as requested. First and foremost, the interior design is beautiful! Felt like I'm instantly back in Thailand, plus its homey at the same time. Love the skylight at the center of the restaurant! Upon seeing the menu, I noticed the resemblance to Thai Villa and found out that they're actually sister restaurants and under same owners. Later on I read that Up Thai is also part of this group and so I'm happy that I already got to round up and experienced dining in this wonderful trifecta of the best Thai restaurants here in Manhattan! Don't ever change, guys! But I digress! Now to the food and drinks. We started off with 2 glasses of Prosecco and I love what they carry here. Perfectly chilled too and so refreshing on a warm near summer day. We had the Thai Crepe dumplings and Chicken in Pandan leaves for starters and we loved it. I especially appreciate the latter because having studied a culinary course in Thailand, I learned how to make this and they nailed this dish perfectly! My husband got the Pad Thai with Shrimp and Chicken and I think this in the top 3 Pad Thais ever in the city. The shrimp was especially so fresh and delicious. As for me, despite the many different dishes that I still wanted to order, I went ahead with my go to and favorite Red Beef Curry and I specifically said please make it regular Thai spicy but I think they still held back LOL but I'll easily forgive them for that just because the dish itself was executed so wonderfully! Dessert (we were full but we just couldn't resist) was the chocolate lava cake with Tahitian vanilla ice cream. Yummm! In between our bites, our server Kiki attended to us really well and she is just so nice and friendly. We got to talk about Thailand and our favorite Thai dishes etc and I think that the management should commend her for being so professional and nice. Thanks Kiki! It did contribute to our overall happy dining experience. As for me, I believe that this is just the start and we'll be one of the regulars moving forward. Honestly cannot wait to come...

I am baffled by this having 4.8 stars. Based on that, I was excited to go and expected a guarantee that the food would be good, whatever else regarding service/atmosphere. In fairness - the interior is beautiful, very loud but I guess that's a vibe, and the service the service was fine though not stellar. They reseated us when one room was screaming loud which we appreciated. When we ordered, I let our waitress know that I could not eat cilantro, and ordered the Larb only if they could do it without cilantro, otherwise I'd choose something else (some restaurants do, some don't based on my experience). She told me it definitely had no cilantro. I received it and could smell the cilantro before she'd even finished putting it down on the table. I did taste to confirm, it was definitely in there and abundant. I let her know, and she insisted it didn't contain cilantro. I wasn't trying to be difficult but had to insist that it did (if you have the cilantro palette, you get it, you cannot miss that taste...). She took it away, came back with it and told me, the chef said it doesn't have cilantro, but instead has something like koolanto? Something I hadn't hear of, so I said, ok, if it does contain a different herb that isn't cilantro, but a herb that tastes EXACTLY like cilantro, then its still a problem and you should have let me know that when I ordered it saying that I don't like cilantro. At any rate they took it back and removed from the bill - so fine. Moving on, the Duck Roti arrived - contained hardly any duck, and what duck there was wasn't thrilling - not bad but not super flavorful or exception texture, ordinary I would say. The hoisin dipping sauce was totally weird and tasted as if they'd gone far too heavy with one particular spice or something. We couldn't eat it. Final dish was the Short Rib Panang Curry. Short rib was fine, but curry sauce was minimal. Shouldn't really have been advertised as a curry, was more like, short rib with a splash of Panang sauce.... we ran out of the curry in a few bites. The sweet potato was undercooked and al dente, not what we expected when paired with the tender short rib in curry.... I will say the bartender made me an absolutely bomb Negroni. But overall, I won't be back I'm sorry to say as I love Thai food and eat it...