8 Paet Rio
“I usually order dishes with crispy pork, but i always enjoy the crab fried rice, where they put big chunks of crab that's nice and sweet and juicy.”
“Some classic staples include spring rolls, thai shrimp fried rice, and mango sticky rice dessert.”
8 Paet Rio
Takes Reservations: Yes
Delivery: Yes
Take-out: Yes
Accepts Credit Cards: Yes
Bike Parking: Yes
Good for Kids: Yes
Good for Groups: Yes
Has TV: Yes
Waiter Service: Yes
Caters: Yes
PokéStop Nearby: Yes
Price range.
$$ Price range $11-30
8 reviews
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Seats only 28 people and with the word "Rio" attached to the name I would never thought this would be a Thai restaurant since semantics was never one of my strong points.
Paet Rio delivers some delicious Thai flavors, though portion sizes are on the smaller end, they make up big in taste.
We came here with my wife's cousin who is married to a beautiful Thai. I always believed if you can speak the lingo in their native tongue, service and food is always better. 🙂
We ordered the following:
* Tom Yum soup – Delicious Thai hot and sour flavors.
* Som Tam Thai – Papaya Salad – crunchy, salty, and OMG spicy, we should have throttled back on the spice, but it was good!
* Chicken and pork skewers – typical meat skewers, OK.
* Mixed seafood with mushrooms – As the name applies – OK
* fishball vermicelli soup – Nothing out of the ordinary – OK
* Gong op Wun sen – glass noodles with shrimp served in a clay pot, nice flavors.
* Pla neung Manao – steamed fish in garlic, lemon and lime sauce – real flavorful fish with the sauce all mixed in.
* Pat Kha-na mu krop – Chinese broccoli with crispy pork pieces – broccoli cooked perfectly, not too soggy
* Pork sia sod – soft thai spring roll stuffed with bean sprouts, mint, pork andl served with a tamarind infused sauce – Delicious!
Like I mentioned earlier portion sizes are not the biggest and a little pricey for the amount of food you get. The flavors though are delicious and service was impeccable
BYOB if you like and remember parking in this area of Elmhurst is not easy. Take mass transit since the bus and trains are conveniently located in the area.
It was in the middle of winter but God forbid they turn on the heat!! The servers were wearing coats.
The portions are small for the price.
The food is beyond salty. It was extremely hard to eat. I needed a ton of water to drink with the sodium rich food.
Ugh they have to work on these things before I ever come back.
In case you were curious like I was, what does "Paet Rio" mean… this is another name for Chachoengsao, Ms. Likitsansook's home province in Thailand.
The space has stylish decor – similar to a typical Thai restaurant in Hell's Kitchen. The atmosphere is nicer than the other Thai restaurants Queens: dark upholstered seats, rustic wooden paneling and tables, this is a good place to bring a date.
We had the num tok beef noodles and khao soi. The bowls of noodles were delicious and flavorful and definitely on par with Wondee Siam or near by Ayada. But I didn't like the chicken in the khao soi was served as 2 drumsticks – If I'm ordering a bowl of noodles, I don't want to mess around with bones. The noodles were filling and a decent portion. They have wine and beer here as well as Thai iced tea and coffee.
A huge downside for the restaurant is the high price point. I've noticed that they're making an effort to lower the prices – with stickers on the menu that rounded many of the prices down to the nearest dollar i.e. 12.95 to 12.00 but I think there is still a ways to go. With many other options in the Elmhurst area serving good Thai food at a cost more palatable to the locals, Paet Rio needs to fit in – by lowering their prices or help the customer see the value in the expensive dinner bill.
A stylishly decorated restaurant. They have many choices that are seldom found in other Thai places. We tried Kuai chap and Kanom Chin nam- ngiao: both are pork-broth rice noodle soups. Their broth is quite good: flavorful and seasoned not too strongly. The size of our orders were a little too small though. Generally I think this place is kind of expensive but quite authentic and worths trying.
As a Thai person, I usually give Thai cuisine the benefit of the doubt, but I left underwhelmed. The owner is the same owner as Wondee Siam in the city. The decor is pretty straightforward. Still can't figure why the name is spelled different every where.
The food:
Por Pia Sod- Chinese sausage, bean curd, bean sprout, egg, crab meat rolled in fresh spring roll skin served w/ tamarind sauce. This dish is a common dish in Thailand and the one here is good but too sweet and thick from the glaze. yelp.com/user_local_phot…
Gong op Wun-Sen- Steamed shrimp with glass noodles, cabbage, scallion, ginger soy sauce, white pepper, oyster sauce, celery. This dish was OK but the color was off aka lacking in flavor. The shrimp was cooked nicely, but the noodles were slightly undercooked. The mushrooms were a nice addition and they were the non American shiitake variety since they had more flavor. yelp.com/user_local_phot…
Kaeng Som Sour Curry- Kang som paste, mixed vegetables, shrimp. The flavor was pretty respectable, but it was a tad sweet for me and the number of shrimp was pretty skimpy. yelp.com/user_local_phot…
Pla Nueng Manao- Steam whole fish, garlic, chili, lemon juice. It was pretty good as well, the chili and garlic was on a nice addition but the flavor of the fish on the bland side. It was also kinda unusual that they popped the eye out and put a big cherry tomato in it's place. yelp.com/user_local_phot…
Really authentic fresh Thai flavors and a diverse menu of authentic dishes that you can't try anywhere else. As always with proper Thai joints in the city, don't waste their time by ordering the typical green curries and pad kee maos. Order khao soi, which has great crisp noodles in a curry soup that has two big chicken legs for you to gnaw on. Order a whole fried fish. Order a papaya salad (warning, spicy!) I'd love to come back and try some more; it was just two of us.
That said, it is a bit of a distance to go considering the excellent Larb Ubol is much closer to us in Manhattan. But if you are here, this is one of the best and I suspect it beats Ayada (not qualified to give a direct comparison but based on clientele I would put a couple bucks on this)
Other review reaction: For crying out loud, eat the food fresh. Don't get it delivered and then give them 1 star after your food stews/cools down in a sealed container for 20+ minutes in transit. This is why we can't have nice things.
I visited recently with a friend who eats SPICY!
I can't keep up with her. Their level of average heat is my three alarms with an EMS standing by.
Don't feel ashamed to ask for less spice or you'll be drinking a lot of Thai Ice Tea and extra bowls of rice.
I really enjoyed the crispy fish dish which they spared my tease buds and made it very mild.
The fish was tasty and just the right level a tanginess. Rate 4/5
After not seeing my family for some time (I missed them), we decided to come here for a late lunch after much debate. At first, we were talking about going to a noodle soup place, but then changed our minds and opted for Thai. Initially, we were going to go to our usual spot Ayada, but we decided to give a new place a try and came here. But sad to say, this place did not really live up to the expectations.
The place was pretty full when we walked in at 3:10pm, so we were pretty hopeful that food would be good. We were seated quickly (the waitress shifted 2 people sitting at a four top to make room for us).
The menu was definitely interesting and not with the usual suspects of pad thai and curries, so we decided to be adventurous. For appetizers, we tried the pia sod without meat. These were rolls filled with bean curd, bean sprout, egg and topped with crab meat and a sweet glaze. Nothing exciting about this dish and the sauce was just too sweet. I found myself eating the veggie garnish to temper the sweet sauce. That's not a good sign.
For the main entrees, we ordered the Khao Soi (a curry soup with drumsticks, fried egg noodles), Duck Noodle Soup, Yen Ta Fo (slightly sweet, sour, salty and spicy soup with Chinese watercress, fried tofu fish ball, squids, shrimp), Seafood Green Curry medium heat, and also the Pla Yum Mango (fried snapper fish with green mango, onion, cashew nut, peanut, scallion, cilantro with spicy and sour sauce).
And the verdict? Well, most of the dishes were just TOO SALTY. Only the Khao Soi was not as salty. The Yen Ta Fo was interesting and tasted slightly milder than a tom yum soup and I did like that there was Chinese watercress available. The only standout dish was the Pla Yum Mango, however, my family said the fish was fried a little too long and was a bit dry.
We were slightly interested in dessert and my cousin did eye some banana rolls at a table next to us, but when we asked about that dish, the waitress said they just sold out. That's kind of nuts since it wasn't even yet dinner time. Bummer.
And for 4 people to dine, our meal came to $93. Not exactly a bargain, and portions were on the smaller side. Meal was decent but nothing spectacular and left something to be desired.
Considering all the spectacular Thai options in this part of town, I think our family could agree that we will skip on this place in the future. Sometimes, adventures don't always work out, but hey, at least we tried.