Which dishes do you like best, @juno ?
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I don’t cringe because I live in Toronto 
I take it with some of our local Goderich salt.
The brunch menu is Thai fusion at its best, lobster bennies and cocktails. I’ll take one for the team because I eventually try every brunch restaurant on the west side of Yonge St in Toronto with a Google rating of 4.1 and up.
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Well, no, I don’t mean just in Toronto, or even Canada.
I mean anywhere.
It just reeks of culinary self-insecurity.
Like, does, McDonald’s advertise itself as “authentic American fast food”?
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I’ve heard more jokes around here about McDonald’s being authentic or genuine Scottish food.
Those Canadians, and they’re unique sense of humor …
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I am drawn to places that advertise the best cinnamon rolls in town, because they usually are not. The pedant in me wants to try them , then give them a rating of not too bad, meh or not all that
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My tablemate and I liked the larb best. (It was similar to the larb on offer at Lotus of Siam, in Las Vegas, which is regarded by many as the premiere Thai resto in North America - where I’ve noshed many times, though not lately.) Also liked the tum mae jeab. And whatever the menu calls its mango salad.
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Good thing they offer takeout orders and delivery via Ubereats.
It is exactly that in South Korea when they opened up. And it closed after a decade cause it couldn’t handle competition from Korean Chinese food and Korean fried chicken. I had a whole thing about what authentic food means somewhere either here or in another post. It has meaning reflecting culture
I won’t correct you’re they’re.
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So wait! Now if I want to read about restaurants in The Star, I have to go to the GTA section and not Food & Wine? I’m confused.
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We finally tried the boat noodles at Paddler. The broth is dark, rich, and complex, perfumed with cinnamon, star anise, and goodness knows what else. You can get various thicknesses of rice noodles or wheat noodles, all nicely al dente. For meat you can get either softly stewed beef with beef balls or slightly chewier sliced pork with pork balls. Each bowl is then garnished with bean sprouts, gai lan, green onions, basil, cilantro, fried garlic, and crispy pork rinds on the side.
Having had boat noodles only a handful of times, all I can say is that we really enjoyed this version and would happily go back.
Pork with wheat noodle version:
Beef with thick rice noodle version:
Appetizer of wontons filled with quail eggs:
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I need to try that. But I gotta tell you, they’re never served in claypots. Seems like an unnecessary extravagance. But I’m still going to try it anyway 
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Did you know there’s a certification awarded by Thailand’s Ministry of Commerce on the authenticity of the restaurant? Check it out here: https://www.thaiselect.ca/restaurants-in-ontario Ok, I hope I don’t sound like a know-it-all because I just found out about this. 
But I gotta warn you, the standards are lacking IMHO. Some of those in the “Classic” level and below have strayed away from authentic. There used to be a restaurant called Coco Rice next to my old place and they were on the list. However, after one visit and I never returned. And there are some places more authentic than Pai that aren’t on the list.
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A new Thai place opened in Mississauga in Port Credit area called Hello Bangkok so gaveit a shot.
I asked to switch the the bell peppers (both red and green) as well as broccoli per usual and asked to make it “Thai spicy”. To my disappointment they didn’t have Thai eggplant so settled with replacing the three with bok choy. To my surprise, the curry itself was the second most authentic, if not on par with Khao San Road’s green curry! They offered chilli oil on the side but I declined as that would mess with the flavor (looking for a specific heat, not chilli oil). I’m assuming they offered it cause chilli oil is cheaper to make than adding more thai green peppers.
That’s two I’ve found now that pairs great with Pradikatswein Riesling from the Nahe that’s between 8 to 10% alcohol (a way to approximate amount of residual sugar needed for pairing against the heat). Typically Kabinett and Spatlese (Auslese might be overkill for most cases but there were barely that did well).
So far we now have:
-Khao San Road (Toronto)
-Hello Bangkok (Mississauga)
Loving it! Now if we could just have better Korean food (and find authentic Italian food outside Libretto - Neapolitan pizza; Casalinga - Tuscan) I’d be happy.
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Tutti Matti for “authentic” Tuscan.
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New Thai in town https://wanglang.ca/
Great. Now I’m gonna have a Willie Dixon song in my head all day.
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