Chai
“I also had #18 dish first – crispy duck with green apples, cashews, red onions, scallions and lime dressing and that was very nice.”
“Pad Thai, green curry, yellow curry, beef noodle soup, chicken wings and edamame — all delicious.”
“2nd best would be the traditional "Pad Thai"
For starter, Papaya salad and peanut dumplings, very very nice!”
Chai
Delivery: Yes
Take-out: Yes
Accepts Credit Cards: Yes
Bike Parking: Yes
Waiter Service: Yes
Price range.
$$ Price range $11-30
8 reviews
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After wandering across the street to watch my friends' drink over-priced drinks and contemplate another restaurant's menu, we decided to bounce and find something tastier and more affordable. Insert Thai food and Chai. I was sold on the $10-12 entree dishes and the ambiance is pretty nice. Dark walls, fancy chandeliers, and a huge decorative canoe hang from the ceiling. My friend said that two front doors at their entrance has to be a sign of something promising.
One of the greatest parts about this place – the service is insanely fast. We were seated immediately, handed menus, my friends got fancy lychee champagne cocktails (I did not) but they were about $10-11 each. We split a round of appetizers – the peanut dumplings (vegetable because they ran out of the chicken). These were pretty good. I like the texture of the outside with it being almost like cellophane rolled sheet of glass noodle but the inside was just flavorless ground up peanuts. I have faith that veggie dumplings can be so much better. Crispy duck spring rolls with plum sauce – freaking delicious. Better than your average spring roll and I like that they split them in half. Maybe because it feels like you are eating more. lol.
Entrees – My friend and I both went with the traditional Pad Thai Chai Style. Which is regular pad thai with shrimp, egg, peanuts, scallions, bean sprouts. Taste was good. It was a little sweeter than I would prefer. I like pad thai with some heat. Also, second thing to note is that each of our dishes only had 3-4 pieces of shrimp apiece. Though, I'm impressed alone that a thai food restaurant in this area would have shrimp not be extra and still only charge $10. Kudos. Her boyfriend ordered the Kao Pad Lychee: fried rice with lychee nuts, shrimp, eggs, scallions. He kept raving about the cashews in it which I'm assuming were the lychee nuts so he really liked his food. But again, there was a lack of there being enough shrimp.
Excellent service though and cheap-ish tasty food. Check came in like 25 seconds. It appeared like magic. They also have lunch specials in the middle of the day for $8.95 that include an entree and either salad or spring roll.
They have seating upstairs so don't let the small ground level interior deter you.
INDO CHICKEN ($11)
Tasty. Price would be better @ $8 because it's a bit small, but otherwise good.
*BEST DISH HERE*
CHIANG MAI CHICKEN ($13)
Chicken and noodle soup in spicy broth topped with dry noodles. My hub's FAVE dish!
Much more worth the price for the portion & flavor than the Indo Chicken.
We've also tried their rolled steamed rice dumpling appetizer before (I don't remember the name of it), and that was tasty.
Have and will return.
In all honesty, every other restaurant in the radius had over an hour wait so we found ourselves at Chai Thai. The restaurant is a cute Thai place, small and intimate. They have a good sized menu with traditional Thai items and some more modern Thai dishes.
We ordered a bottle of wine, it was fine – not really good – but fine. The peanut dumplings were good, very peanutty. The pad thai was super boring and dry – it's hard to really mess up Pad Thai and they did. My cousin said her curry dish was good, not great. Probably won't be back, but it was worth the try!
Get the Pad See Eiw with beef. It was delicious and approved by both my boyfriend and I. Appetizers were also on point. We got the Golden Calamari as well as the Fried Thai Chicken Wings. Thai iced tea was also good but I would've liked it more with less ice. Overall, food was great!
The only flaw was the seatings. The tables on the bottom floor were crammed too close to each other so there was not much privacy. Last time, my boyfriend and I were seated at a table upstairs with a lot more room. However, this tiny flaw won't stop me from coming back.
This place is a cute cozy restaurant with great service and great food. The decorations are very interesting and help set the vibe.
Our waiter came over really quickly and took our drink order and then our food order. The food was served super fast and was delicious! I had the bbq pork shoulder. The sauce was very spicy on its own but with the pork it was just the right amount of spice. My friend ordered the shrimp fried rice and curry puffs and said both were great.
The dishes were plated in a very aesthetically pleasing manner as well. Our waters were constantly refilled and we didn't even have to ask for the check. They brought it right away. If you're looking for an affordable, quick, yummy dinner near Columbus Circle, this is a great spot!
I have some mixed feelings. I really enjoyed: the ambiance, prices are fair, menu has good variety and location is easy to get to.
The food was fine. Didn't rock my socks but it wasn't bad. I had the pad seeew, tom yum soup and the peanut dumplings. All were great but I wouldn't order the peanut dumplings again. The yellow curry was good – so I think curries may be be way to go here. A bummer was that the service was very slow. We sat for about 5 mins before anyone came to take our order.
I will definitely be back to try it out again.
Came here with a girl friend before a Broadway show. No waiting line and we finished our dinner in 40 minutes-very fast.
The food is okay. Food prices low.
But I realized that there are many Thai food in Hell's Kitchen region. So might wanna try some other places before coming back here.
4 stars for sit-in lunch (do yourself a favor and DON'T order take out):
Not bad for lunch – you get an app and an entree for $8.95 and the portions are fair for the price. Was here with a colleague and we ordered pad thai and pad see ew. Both were pretty good – would come back again for a quick lunch.
Now going back to ordering take out – where was the food!? The amount of food that was in those plastic containers did nothing to satisfy my inner fat kid. I felt like it was HALF the serving size of what you get when you dine in! I was super disappointed and hungry upon finishing and began to daydream about a second lunch. Lesson learned.