Our son picked out soothr thai for his birthday, we’re five so were able to try a bunch of dishes. He did all the ordering:
apps:
duck rolls: sort of generic crispy rolls, didn’t taste particularly of duck, would not order again
jeeb dumplings: delicious but they are dumplings…
Ha Guen: fried taro, delicous, but fried taro…
Entrees:
Duck Noodles: generous serving of duck, complex, well-prepared dish, one of our favorites
Si-Krong Pad Ped: spicy, braised ribs, I enjoyed them but love ribs, these were not loved by the table, texture and spicing was a little wierd.
Stewed Beef and Roasted Vegetable Masamun Curry: everyone’s favorite dish, rich, amped up masamun curry with perfectly cooked, melt-in-your mouth brisket.
Dry Sukhothai Tom Yum noodles: I guess this was their take on Tsukemen, delicious, but would probably opt for duck noodles over this.
crab fried rice: delicious, but crab fried rice…
We weren’t thrilled by the fast pace of the meal, the place was packed with a line overflowing to the street, our reservation gave us 90 minutes of table time, they hustled us out in 60. Not sure how much cooking vs assembling is really happening in the kitchen, dishes appeared very, very quickly. Were we to head back, it woud be midweek hopefully to find a less frenetic room. Prices were very reasonable given location and quality of food.
My sister and I went there not long after it opened. I had noodles with seafood and found it no better than any random “pick a protein, pick a sauce” Thai place. It sounds like your experience - food-wise, anyway - was much better. We weren’t rushed at all, and I don’t remember the place being too crowded (we ate outside). I do remember how awful the cocktail list looked to me.
apparently the cocktails are popular, we didn’t try any. Left to my own devices, I would have ordered the khao soi, made correctly, one of my favorite thai dishes and hard to find a rendition anything like we had in thailand.
on an adjacent note, we were back to sri, it was like a step back in time to when they first opened, each dish better than the last. I’m starting to think the key is to arrive off hours, when the kitchen has time to pay greater attention to detail. Our litmus test has been the crispy pork with chili, garlic & basil leaves If the pork is crunchy and the spices are singing, the rest of the meal has typically been great.
One of the joys of moving back to NYC has been eating good thai food again. In our town in westchester, the best we could do was a chinese restaurant that made some watery thai dishes. It turns out the UES has some decent thai restaurants, so far zabb putawn is our favorite. Probably helped that we went with a friend from thailand who ordered off-menu…
