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On March 14, better known as Pi Day, Ryan and I went for lunch with his parents to Pai Northern Thai Kitchen. Still on our Thai food kick following Pok Pok and Nana, Ryan and I checked another Thai restaurant off our list. The starter above was the Som Tum Tad, the papaya salad. It was topped with salted crab and served on a platter surrounded by shredded cabbage, chicharrón, fresh noodles, shrimp crackers, and assorted fresh herbs. The flavours and textures were fantastic and nicely complemented each other.
At the bottom of the menu was the legend for spice levels: you can order the dishes with anything from ‘no spice’ all the way to ‘Phet Mak Mak’ (Thai spicy), which is great for when you are dining with people who have more sensitive palates.
Since we just went to Pai Northern Thai Kitchen for lunch, we ordered off the lunch menu. However, we will definitely be back so we can also enjoy the more varied dishes on the dinner menu!
To start, we ordered Pak Boong Fai Deng, a dish of stir fried morning glory greens, served with an amazing savoury soybean sauce and chilis. If I could figure out this sauce, I would make it with bok choy, gai lan, and snow pea shoots, among my other favourite Asian vegetables. Morning glory is also called water spinach, and consists of crunchy hollow stems and mild leaves that wilt nicely. There’s a recipe for this dish in Pok Pok, so I’ll be trying this out myself!
These spring rolls were some of the best meatless ones I’ve ever had. They were filled with glass noodles, mushrooms, carrots, and sprouts and served with a sweet chili sauce.
The Gai Satay were chicken skewers served with a delectable peanut sauce.
I ordered the Chef Nuit Pad Thai, which consisted of rice noodles stir fried with tofu, cauliflower, broccoli, bean sprouts and carrots in a sweet and sour tamarind sauce and sprinkled with roasted peanuts, all served on a banana leaf.
Ryan had the Pad Gra Prow at the suggestion of our server. It was a mixture of ground pork stir fried with holy basil, oyster sauce, and chilis, served on a bed of jasmine rice, topped with a crispy fried egg. This dish was served with a little cup of nam plik nam pla, a sauce of fish sauce, garlic, chili, and lime.
The Gaeng Hunglay was a sweet and sour curried ox tail with ginger.
To finish it all off, we had the Mango Sticky Rice (Khao Niaw Mamuang) for dessert. The salty-sweet glutinous rice was cooked with a hint of coconut and topped with a fresh mango, all served on a piece of aromatic pandan leaf.
Visit Pai Northern Thai Kitchen:
18 Duncan St.
Toronto, ON
M5H 3G8
