Lan Larb
“The decor is very trendy and looks upscale but the prices aren't.
They don't have a liquor license but can accommodate BYOB.”
“Yep so after living in Murray Hill on a postgrad budget, I'm basically a wannabe pad see ew connoisseur at this point.”
“I was a little sad when Ruay Thai closed (a few doors down), but I think that Lan Larb will do nicely as a replacement.”
Lan Larb
Takes Reservations: Yes
Delivery: Yes
Take-out: Yes
Accepts Credit Cards: Yes
Bike Parking: Yes
Good for Kids: Yes
Good for Groups: Yes
Waiter Service: Yes
Caters: Yes
PokéStop Nearby: Yes
Price range.
$$ Price range $11-30
8 reviews
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Good, cheap Thai food. Lunch specials include an appetizer and a large-portioned entree. There's also bar area, but only four stools. Lunch can be busy, so time it right.
I live very close to Lan Larb and was happy to see a Thai restaurant in the area. I've ordered a few times and have had mixed experiences. The first time, I just piggybacked off of my roommates order and got the crab cake things. They were bad. So dry and fishy. The next time, I had pad see ew with shrimp and pork and the pork tasted weird.
Their $8 lunch special is a pretty good deal, it's also available on weekends so that makes quite a difference. The lunch special includes an appetizer and a carb-based stir-fry entree like pad see ew or pad thai with your choice of protein. The appetizer portion is nothing to shout about, it's really a two-biter at most, but it's still a nice touch. I ordered a pork over rice with chicken larb – the pork over rice is slightly more expensive at $10, but the generous helping of meat made it worthwhile. If you choose to eat in, they give you a little ladle of soup to start – it's just a vegetable broth-based soup, nothing special, but it's the details that count.
I thought the food tasted good and I have no complaints. I'd definitely come back for the great value.
I decided to check out Lan Larb based on 4 star reviews and proximity to a rooftop bar I was going to. Unfortunately I wasn't very impressed with the service. My friend and I ordered right away – he got the duck salad and I got the prik king curry with veggies. The food itself was good – not too greasy, with a nice presentation. However, I give 3 stars because of the service. Once we were done, the waitress never spontaneously came back over to ask if we wanted to pay. When I finally flagged someone down, the check took a while to come, and I immediately placed my credit card in the little basket they provided and put it on the corner of the table to pay. Nobody came by to collect it for a good 5-10 minutes, so I had to flag somebody down again to pay. For a small restaurant that had a couple of waiters and not many customers, this sort of service was surprising. I don't think it will be a repeat for me as a result.
Since I need thai food at least once a week, I tried Lan Larb today when I wanted a lunch special. They have a good deal, including a soup, spring rolls/dumplings, meal for $8.
The soup is vegetable with some tofu. Standard and good! This time, I went for spring rolls, and they were delicious. A good ratio of crispy outsides to veggies. The pad see ew is unfortunately just okay. There honestly wasn't much flavor to the dish. The noodles were a good texture, and the greens that came in it were well cooked. However, if you blindfolded me and gave me a bite of the chicken, I wouldn't be able to tell if it were from a Thai dish or chicken and rice, due to the lack of distinctive flavor.
The curries smelled delicious, so I will come back and try another dish. But I'll save my noodle cravings for somewhere else!
Lan Larb has a great $8 lunch special deal, especially for the neighborhood! Otherwise, it's your typical fast-casual Northern Thai restaurant. Friendly, prompt service.
The Ban Po Moo Dang is excellent here as a lunch special. It came with a mini chicken larb and thankfully the broth was on the side. Pretty good pork/crab as well.
TLDR: STAY AWAY, MANAGEMENT IS EVIL AND MISTREATS THEIR EMPLOYEES
Went here tonight for dinner and the food was pretty up and down (Duck Wrap: bad, Larb: very good, Mango Salad: so-so). All-in-all, slightly disappointed b/c I love Isan thai food, but probably still three stars.
Things really turned south when our Salmon Pad Kee Mow showed up. The salmon was just bone dry, as in the texture of styrofoam. I'm not expecting medium rare at a thai place, but after one bite we both agreed that it was really not edible and decided to point this out to our waiter.
The waiter was understanding and went to the kitchen to see what could be done. After he left, we decided we really didn't want to wait around for a re-make (food was fairly slow to begin with) so I ran and told the waiter to skip it.
Then the bill shows up and the salmon is on there. I asked the waiter if he really we felt we should pay for the salmon (which was still sitting nearly whole on our plate, dry as ever). He said since we refused the remake, if he took it off our bill, HE would have to pay for it. He was nothing but polite and helpful previously, so I believed him. I asked to speak to a manager and an extremely unpleasant woman came over essentially confirmed this, saying "this was restaurant policy" that "it's the waiter's job to make sure the customer is satisfied" and that "things would be handled internally". She gave me an ultimatum: "take the dish off the check or not, your choice"
I have rarely ever sent a dish back in this way before, so I don't have a ton of basis, but I think this is a truly ridiculous and exploitative way to handle what is likely a semi-regular occurrence at most restaurants. It is totally unfair to the waiter (who didn't cook the food or mess up in any way) and put me in the extremely uncomfortable position of having to choose between paying for inedible food or screw over a nice waiter who to whom an $18 pay hit is probably quite meaningful.
I solved in the best way I could think of, which was to remove the dish from the check and then slip the waiter a $20 to cover any trouble that came from the incident. I truly hope someone higher in the management of the restaurant reads this and does something to correct this type of treatment (of both guests and employees).