Valla Table — Restaurant in New York

Panang brisket is exceptional. Soft, tender, and the sauce is fragrant and rich in flavour. However, it contains no vegetables; just curry sauce, meat, and white rice on the side. And for $25 I wish there was more meat.

Chicken Pad Thai for $16 lacked flavour and the bean sprouts are served raw. Also there should be more toppings as it was mostly noodles. The banana leaves at the bottom of the dish add aroma/flavour however since it's at the bottom when I stirred the dish to mix in the raw beansprouts I ended up breaking the banana leaves apart. It's rather unsightly for others when you're licking Pad Thai off broken banana leaves. Also, the Pad Thai came in a two handled frying pan that annoyingly spun every time I took noodles out of it. I'd recommend serving the Pad Thai on a plate next time. It shouldn't require a partner holding the frying pan/plate steady in place for one to eat!

Sweet Sticky Rice with Mango was an absolute dud for $15. It was just a single sliced mango drizzled with unsweetened condensed milk and a scoop of plain glutinous rice. This travesty of a dessert wasn't sweet at all! I couldn't detect a hint of coconut and I'd have appreciated the condensed milk to be cold instead of room temp. It may not be traditional but a cold rice pudding with raisins would be way more satisfying.

They garnish with tasteless flowers (which I still ate) and gold specks in the dishes. No amount of gold leaf is going to make that glutinous rice sweet or appetizing. The only redeeming quality is the mango was fresh (though it wasn't tart or sweet either). Seriously, charging $15 for that lazy, pitiful dessert felt like I was stolen from. I'd rather give $15 to those indigenous Kichwa-speaking Ecuadorian migrants who exploit their children to sell candy on the subway cars. Ethical dilemma aside, at least their candy is sweet and that's coming from someone who has braces and can't eat candy for another 2 years.

The servers are attentive and courteous. They fill your water for you albeit they use plastic cups instead of glasses.

The mood lighting makes the inside feel cozy and intimate but the tables are so close together it's hard for one to stretch their arms for fear of hitting a neighbour or staff member.

I won't come again. But I'm also Canadian and we say sorry a lot. So finally, I'll just say that I'm sorry for anyone who orders that outrageous runny diaper...

This might be one of the most difficult restaurants for me to review as I have so many mixed feelings about it. First off, the food is great. Very tasty Thai food with deep and balanced flavors and huge variety. The menu design is one of the best. We had some Thai food items that we never had before and also some familiar items. I have no criticism about the food. Second is the service, which becomes tricky. The first impression was good, they serve a delicious Bael fruit tea as pallet cleanser. The waitress was very helpful with the menu too. But then comes the weird interactions. Serving water mid-lunch, one waitress filled two of our three glasses, ran out of water, placed the empty bottle on the water table across our table and left. In another occasion we asked for chopsticks (which I think should come by default in a Thai restaurant?) and received two for our table of three. Also I do not appreciate it when the waiters ask if they can take away the dish with food in it too many times. Third aspect is the place itself. With the acquisition of the next door shop, this place has now two entrances. We went in one of them and a waitress greeted us, asking to exit and come in the other door, we did so and in the other shop we waited to be seated, then the waitress asked us to go back to the other shop again to be seated. We saw other groups of people entering and exiting through these two doors and I think they should do something about having an internal way between these two shops. The next was not informing the customers in the second shop about not being able to serve alcohol in it until they want to order (which I think will be resolved soon). Next issue was the air conditioning in this second shop. It was a really hot NYC summer day and eating hot Thai food was not pleasant in the absence of a proper air conditioning. I was sweating all the time! Overall it was a good dinner and it is a shame for such a good food to be overshadowed by strange service and easily fixable...

I was here at exactly 12noon. I was greeted warmly right away when I entered the restaurant even I don’t have a reservation. I was really looking froward for their crispy pork however it wasn’t available at the moment so I opted for phat kaphrao and a spribg rolls which I also love and what I eat whenever I am in bangkok. I really do love thai food. They also adjusted the level of spiciness based on what I prefer. Honestly, everything was good here from food, atmosphere and the customer service.

I was asked if I could do a google review with the exchange of the drink that I ordered will be complimentary and I agree to it. However, my internet is not working at the moment but I would def gonna post a review since they were taking care of me so much. I informed them that I couldn’t post a review right now but I will still post whenever I connect to the interenet and ask for the bill. I didn’t expect anything like my drink to be complimentary since I didn’t made a review yet so I still paid for it. However, It’s kinda disappointing that I feel like because I didn’t post a review yet all the “customer service aura” was gone when I was paying. I even said thankyou and bye but I was ignored when I left which is weird because the other person who left with a review they all bidded bye and thank you so at some point I feel like it was all about a google review that’s why they are so extra nice.

Please be consistent with the customer sevice with or without a review :)

I would still recommend this place if you want authentic thai food :) I just felt different at some point but...