thai: i recommend THAI MADE

THAI MADE 泰美泰國原始料理
台北市大安區東豐街34號
(02) 2784-0303

MRT: Zhongxiao/Fuxing or DaAn

website: Thai Made FB page

hours: 11AM-2:30PM; 5:30PM-10PM

$$

Kid friendliness: no high chairs spotted, but many non spicy items on the menu

Visit reviewed: 3/11/2012

Joined late to a dinner with my friends at the fairly new Thai Made on Dong Feng Street. It's a cute little space, on a lane with restaurants that have cute little spaces including the Citizen Cane turned Cubano turned Fourplay bar down the street. Good for date night or family dinners.

There's about twelve or so tables with an open kitchen along the side and a semi private room in the back. Fresh green coconuts and vegetables line the counter, and the aroma of stir fried chilis and spices sometimes permeate the air.



The menu is quite varied and expansive in English, Thai and Chinese, with curries, salads, soups, rice, noodles, stir-fries, vegetables, grilled meats and seafood.

One of Thai Made's signature dishes is a seafood red curry in whole coconut (NT$400). My friends had already almost finished it when I got there - it was sweet with a lot of bits of crab and chunky curry.

Thai hot and sour prawn soup (NT$350) 

Northern style grilled pork on skewers with peanut sauce

Northern style grilled aromatic beef (NT$280)

Everything tasted fresh and the right amounts of sour, spicy, sweet. I'd definitely go back to explore more of the menu, though I haven't had a chance to yet. I'd recommend going with a group of people so you could order more and share family style.

thai: i recommend RAMA THAI

RAMA THAI RAMA泰餐廳
at ATT4Fun
No. 12, Song Shou Rd., 10 FL 台北市信義區松壽路12號10樓
(02) 7737-9998

MRT: Taipei City Hall

website: Rama Thai's FB page

hours: 10AM- 1 AM

$$ - $$$ (about NT$640/person)

Kid friendliness: high chairs available, spacious with private rooms

Visit reviewed: 1/13/2012

Been trying a lot of new Thai places lately, not sure why... maybe because it's good for larger groups and with the colder weather, we feel like something spicy to feel the heat. The more Thai restaurants and dishes I try, the more I find that Thai cuisine is actually quite varied, but I also appreciate the places that do the classics well.

Rama Thai is a new-ish luxe Thai restaurant on the top floor of ATT4Fun, with a wall of window and balcony seating with a panoramic view of 101.  There is also an outdoor patio bar that opens up during the summer and swimming pool at the entrance. Opened by the owners of Brown Sugar and Dozo, they bring the same cool vibe and modern design to Rama Thai.

\

Rama's decor is quite striking with the wood detail in the ceiling and walls- I felt like I was some Southeast Asian luxury resort the first time I stepped inside. I also like how you can see the whole room with open space that doesn't feel too crowded, and it's nice that their private rooms also don't feel too claustrophobic, with some that open up to a private balcony.

The balcony seating wasn't opened up during the rainy winter season, but I can imagine it being a fun place to hang out when the sun comes back around to Taipei.

When I went in January 2012, the menu was only in Chinese with no photos, but I was told an English version was coming soon. So my friend who chose Rama Thai as our lunch spot ordered for us. We settled on some pad thai, a yellow chicken curry, satay and spicy beef dish. My friend mentioned she had tried and surprised herself by liking the frog leg curry, but I wasn't going to be that adventurous.

pad thai

I thought all the food was very good (except the curry which I didn't like), just slightly pricey for the portions for certain dishes, like the satay (NT$380). Many of the things they've imported from Thailand, so some might be able to taste the difference. For four dishes for three people, we ended up paying about NT$640 a person. 

chicken and beef satay

stir fried spicy beef

The stir fried spicy beef (NT$380) was our favorite, with us even waving down the waiter to get some Thai rice to go with it. He brought over a huge basket to our table and ladled a bowl sized scoop of rice onto our plate. You can also put the beef in the lettuce to make a wrap, but there weren't enough lettuce leafs to finish off the beef.

The chicken yellow curry was too creamy, if that's possible, making it quite heavy. I'd try a different curry in the future to see if it would have a better result.

yellow curry with chicken

Rama Thai also has an extensive drink menu and bar, and is open quite late until 3AM on certain days. However, the chef isn't there during after dinner hours, so only drinks are available- there wasn't even a snack menu available when I went once around 11 PM. After some cajoling with the waiter, he busted out some non-complimentary shrimp chips.

I'm curious to see what else is available on their menu, so I can try some of the other dishes- hopefully the English version gets printed up soon!

revisited/thai: i strongly recommend VERY THAI

VERY THAI 非常泰
No. 319 Fuxing N. Rd 台北市復興北路319號
(02) 2546-6745

MRT: ZhongShan Jr. High School

website: verythai.com.tw

hours: 11:30AM - 3PM; 5:30PM - 1:30AM

$$

Kid friendliness: high chairs and kids dinnerware available

Visit reviewed: 3/9/2012
Past review: 11/5/2010 at Neo 19 branch

moon shrimp pancake

Last Friday, after watching the film A SIMPLE LIFE (which totally deserved the awards for best director, best actor (my mom's favorite, Andy Lau) and best actress. Go see it, it has subtitles!), a group of the 20 of us were trying to figure out where to go for a post movie dinner where we could all sit together. Late night and large group- where to go? After vetoing the mall restaurants at QSquare and brainstorming, someone reserved two tables for us at Very Thai and off we went.

The Fuxing location as modern and sleek as its Neo 19 location that I visited two years ago, and is open until 1:30AM for the late night diners. Quite a few of my friends ordered drinks and I heard their mojitos are also quite good. The appetizer menu has a lot of options for late night munchies, and when you order, be sure to let them know what your spiciness tolerance is or look for the chili peppers on the menu if they don't ask.

fried kon ching tsai greens with shrimp paste

Maybe it's dining with lots of friends and being able to taste a little bit of everything or maybe my friends knew what to order... but my experience this time was much more satisfying and I could see why voters chose it as their favorite Thai restaurant in this year's Readers' Choice Awards.

grilled pork with thai dipping sauce

The appetizers are great for sharing with good portions, and the slightly sweet grilled pork with Thai dipping sauce was one of my favorites. Tender slices of pork, enhanced by the dual sauces.

The Thai style sausage was also popular at the table, but not my thing. I prefer the sweeter Taiwanese sausage. It's funny how they give you plastic gloves to assemble the lettuce around the sausage. Be sure to take off the chili pepper if you don't want the extra kick.

Thai style sausage

make someone at the table put it all together

The squid fried rice also disappeared quickly. Maybe we were all starving. It was a good pairing with the spicy stir fried beef and the green curry and chicken curry. If some of the things on the menu taste familiar, it's because Very Thai and Thai Town have the same owners.

spicy fried rice with squid NT$250

spicy beef stir fry

The deep fried oysters  were served on the half shell and on the lettuce. I rarely see the larger oysters being served in Taipei, so I gobbled it up while it was hot.

deep fried oysters with thai spicy sauce

Very Thai's coconut ice cream was milky and rich and I enjoyed every bite. I didn't like coconut when I was a kid though my mom loved coconut ice cream and I remember when she'd get coconut pineapple ice cream from Thrifty's, which I refused to try until I was in my 20s. This version was more creamy (and probably fattening) and flavor reminded me of those milk candies I had as a kid, and I'd definitely get it again.

coconut ice cream

Otherwise you could opt for the more traditional momo chacha, which is chewy, crunchy, icy and sweet.

mo mo cha cha

Usually I don't go back to a place if I don't love it, or if I do give it another chance, it's more of the same, but I'm glad that I got a chance to revisit Very Thai and try more of their house specialties and have some great food with great friends.


View Larger Map

OTHER LOCATIONS

at Neo 19, No. 22 SongRen Rd, 2F,
台北市松壽路22號2樓
(02) 8789-6200

at Tianmu Sogo, No. 77, ZhongShan N Rd, Sec 6, 8F,
台北市中山北路6段77號8樓
(02) 2831-0188

at Megacity, No. 28, XinZhan Rd, 9F, Banqiao
新北市板橋區新站路28號9F
(02) 6637-0038;

thai/revisited: i still strongly recommend PATIO THAI

ED NOTE: This location closed a/o 5/2011, but should reopen in 6/2011 as a different Thai restaurant. maybe under different management or owners?

PATIO THAI
No. 12, Alley 247, Dun Hua S. Rd., Sec.1
(02) 2731-5288

website: patiogroup.com (in English, but incomplete menu online)

lunch: 11:30 AM - 2:30 PM
dinner: 5:30 PM - 9:30 PM

$$

Visit reviewed: 2/17/2011
previously reviewed: 11/24/2008 & 3/9/2007





Pleasantly surprised once again by the food at Patio Thai, though I liked the appetizers and thai style fried rice noodles with prawns (NT$300) more than the curry. Having had some bad pad thai recently, Patio Thai's pad thai is clearly on the sweet side which is the way I like it. I know that's not how everyone likes it, but I'd go back for this dish alone. The chewiness of the rice noodles are enhanced by the tofu puffs and crunchy peanuts and we had to order another dish when this one was quickly finished. I might say this is my favorite pad thai in Taipei.



The sizeable menu is easy to browse, in English and Chinese.

Go with a lot of people so you can order a bunch of appetizers to share. The trio of golden fried chicken spring rolls, prawns pouch and vegetable cigar appetizer platter (NT$280) with fried tidbits reminded me of the combo platters we'd get in Chinese restaurants back home...


the duo of chicken, beef and prawns satay (NT$300) with all the peanut sauce poured on already...



the crispy soft shell crab...



prawn cakes (NT$290) with another sweet dipping sauce....

crispy golden fried chicken with chili, garlic and pepper (NT$320)...

Man, I just noticed most of our appetizers were fried. Okay, order some veggies to balance it out... morning glory with shrimp paste.

I end up ordering this grilled beef fillet in green curry with bamboo shoots, aubergines and sweet basil almost every time and not loving it every time. Oh well. It's quite spicy for those of you looking for some fire. Next time I'll have to remember to look for those little chili peppers marking the spicy items on the menu.

I enjoyed our Tom Kha seafood in coconut galangal soup even though it came towards the end of our meal (instead of the beginning). It's sour like Tom Yum soup, but also sweet because it has coconut milk in it. One of my friends was confused by the flavors and said it tasted like slightly sour milk to her. I don't think it tastes like that because I like it, but some may be put off by the combination of the milky, sour and sweet.



The best thing about Patio Thai is it's usually not crowded so I enjoy the tranquil and lovely setting and friendly service.

OTHER LOCATIONS

No.28 Ren-Ai Rd.,Sec 3, 7-3F,
(02) 2700-8618

at Sogo
No. 45, Chung-Hsiao East Rd., Sec. 4, 11F,
(02) 2721-5998