Tasting Thai This Week
It’s probably coming to no surprise that this week at UBMe, we’re back with more delicious eats! When selecting restaurants, we decided to go with the wonderful Thai cuisine. The bold colors and seasonings make us huge fans of Thai food, and we had such a blast searching the United States for fabulous Thai restaurants to highlight!
We are also super excited to bring you some fabulous guest-bloggers this week! They’re bringing you a delicious taste of their favorite Thai restaurants through the beautiful photos they capture and their wonderful story-telling abilities – you’ll even hear about great Southeast Asian travels from one of our bloggers, Jennifer! We know you’ll love them as much as we do! To see even more photos than you will in the article, hop on over to UBMe’s Library and explore our Taste of Thai Digital Catalog on the first shelf!
Introducing Jennifer Pietrofere
We are very excited to introduce you to Jennifer, fabulous food-blogger and owner of @FoodTurntUp on Instagram! She captures her own photos to bring her food journey to life, and we are so lucky to have her with us this week! Enjoy!
Jennifer’s Food Journey Beginning
“I grew up on the water in a small town on Long Island where I found a love of seafood. My brother and I would help my dad dig for steamers in our backyard when we were little. I come from a family that usually orders every appetizer on the menu. I decided to blog to keep myself accountable with healthy food, but that quickly turned into me posting travel eats after my first trip to Southeast Asia. In Thailand I discovered sticky rice and pad thai so delicious I had to photograph it.”
Thai Time – Jennifer’s Favorite Local Thai Restaurants
“A local spot near my hometown Sopah Thai Kitchen makes Tom Kha Gai almost as good as I remember it in Chiang Mai. I am a sucker for saucy noodles and RaCha Thai Cuisine’s huge bowl of Khao Soi with egg noodles is slurp worthy. The steamed veggie dumplings at Pure Thai Cookhouse in New York City are my absolute favorite and anything with the handmade egg noodles there are a must order. The Red Piano in Cambodia has the most flavorful soups and curry dishes.”
Foodie Bucket-List
This is one of our favorite parts – finding out about our guest-bloggers Foodie Bucket-List!
“The Lost Kitchen in Maine is on my list, if I ever get lucky enough to win the lottery system they have. I want some of everything that Erin cooks, oysters, the grazing plate and maybe some lobster bisque. I won’t make it another year without getting to Misi for the Sheep’s milk ricotta filled occhi. I also hope to get to Thai Farm Kitchen for some curry this fall.”
Food-Journey Travel Dreams
“I would love to travel all throughout Southeast Asia and try street food with Mark Wiens from @migrationology. My roots are Italian so Naples is also a bucket-list location for me. I love the crunch and filling of sfogliatella and would pretty much die happy eating any pasta dish.”
A Leap of Faith: Foodie – Style
“One of the weirdest things I have ever eaten is from Bugs Cafe in Cambodia. They serve insect tapas and I got a skewer with scorpion, water bugs, and tarantula all sautéed in butter and served with peppers. It was the most unique and interesting food experience I have ever had and I can confidently say it was once in a lifetime.”
Isn’t Jennifer’s food-journey amazing? If you didn’t before, make sure you go and follow her on Instagram and keep up with @FoodTurntUp and her future foodie adventures!
Welcome to Thai Chic Bistro!
Hewlett, NY
“At Thai Chic Bistro, we strive to serve nothing but the freshest meals from the finest ingredients. We specialize in healthy home-style cooking. For us, meals are celebration of family, friends and culture.”
The sense of family that Thai Chic Bistro creates is one of the main reasons (outside of their incredible food, of course) that we wanted to highlight them! We really can’t get enough of their great eats, and are quite excited to share with you some of their favorite dishes as well as their customers!
Thai Chic combo
Pad Cha Rib Eye
Soft Shell Crab Garlic
Maasaman Curry
Welcome to 55 Thai Kitchen!
San Diego, CA
We are super excited to introduce you to 55 Thai Kitchen! They have four fabulous locations, residing in Pacific Beach, San Diego State University, Golden Hill and East Village! The owner, Ben, is originally from Thailand and relocated to the United States with his family when he was 4 years old. His business partner and Head Chef, helped his family run their restaurant in Bangkok, Thailand since he was 15 years old, and that’s where the magic really began!
The two not only provide amazing food to their surrounding areas, but they really give back to the community as well. They keep their profit-margins as low as possible so that they can provide affordable, yet delicious Thai food to all of the community members. Their personal motto is ‘Thai Food for the Community’ – wow, we love their hard work and tenacity and really believe in the difference they’re making!
Their house specials look absolutely fabulous, including Spicy Basil Chicken and Gai Tod Over Rice – YUM! We totally encourage you to check out the rest of their menu here! It all looks beyond delicious and we can’t wait until we’re out in California enjoying it!
Welcome to Pro Thai!
New York, NY
We are so happy to bring you the authentic Thai Cuisine from Pro Thai, in New York City, New York! Not only is their food wonderful, but it’s presented so beautifully as well, as you can see in all of their photos!
“Formerly known as Coco Curry, Pro Thai has an experienced kitchen that turns out Thai staples (drunken noodles, panang curry and the like) and recipes from the new owner’s grandmother. It offers a well-designed outdoor seating space on its corner at the border of East Harlem and the Upper East Side.”
Next time you’re in New York, we highly recommend you stopping over at Pro Thai – they actually have multiple locations. One is on the Upper East Side and the other resides in East Harlem, so visiting both is a must! In addition to their two Pro Thai locations, they also have a sister restaurant, Buddha Vegan which is also in New York City!
We hope you enjoyed the taste of Pro Thai and now have their locations noted! Their lovely cuisine is a must-have, and we’re so happy to highlight them this week!
Welcome Back, Laura!
At UBMe, we always love bringing back food bloggers we’ve worked with. This week we’re excited to bring back Laura from @LauraGramNYC! She’s giving us a taste of her favorite Thai restaurants and we cannot wait to share with them you – we just love everything Laura suggests for us to try, so we’re going to dig right in!
Lan Larb
Lan Larb is a wonderful, authentic Thai restaurant in the Soho area of New York. Laura loves their authenticity, street-food vibe! Her favorite dish is the Short Rib Hung Lay, which is a curry found all over Northern Thailand. It includes slow-cooked short ribs and LOTS of ginger and garlic, making it SO flavorful! Yummy!
Sticky Rice
Sticky Rice is a great Thai find on the Lower East Side that Laura adores! She described it as being trendy and hip, even having its own cocktail program – we can get on board with that! She said she goes straight for their Chicken Satay and Chicken Pad Thai with a Lychee Bellini. That sounds DELICIOUS!
Laura described the flavors in the Pad Thai sauce as vibrant and providing a great amount of contrast to the sweet, bubbly cocktail. Sounds like the perfect combination! We couldn’t agree more – next time you’re in the Lower East Side area of New York City, make sure to stop in at Sticky Rice, per Laura’s recommendation!
Welcome to Try My Thai!
Sandy, OR
Try My Thai is a wonderful Thai Restaurant in Sandy, Oregon and they are open every day for lunch and dinner – how amazing is that?! We love the family atmosphere they create and we are super excited to say that this week, we’re welcoming them into our UBMe Family!
We love local restaurants that are run by great people who not only create incredible food, but create a fabulous atmosphere for their customers as well!
Next time you’re in Oregon, we strongly encourage you to get a great taste of authentic, Thai cuisine from Try My Thai!
Thank You!
As always, we have so many amazing people to thank for making this article and digital magazine come to life! We love working with you all, and Jennifer, Alyssa, Laura, Coco, Ben and Bee, you’re all wonderful – thank you!
To our readers, we want to see you enjoying these great spots as well! If you go to any of these restaurants, we’d absolutely love to see your meals and experience – tag us on Instagram! We truly love supporting and highlighting local restaurants and hope that you readers enjoyed UBMe’s Tasty Thai edition this week!