I told Aaron and Kara that I love Thai food, and they recommended checking out Thai City (or Little Thailand, I can’t remember what they called it).  Basically, it’s an open strip mall that has 7 or 8 Thai restaurants in it, and mandatory valet parking (even though parking is ample).  It definitely had fewer brothels than I expected for being a US-version of Thailand, but it was definitely interesting.  One trend I’ve noticed when it comes to Thai food is that Thai people really like confirming that the food is from Thailand and not anywhere else in southeast Asia (hence the many restaurant names with “Thai” in it: My Thai, Mai Thai, Planet Thai, Pad Thai, Taste of Thai, Thai City, just being a few…).  Aaron and Kara’s favorite place was called Ruen Pair, which from my experience is a good sign if the Thai restaurant doesn’t have to tell you its Thai (although I concede that Ruen Pair might mean “Thai Restaurant” in Thai for all I know)*.

We decided to order three dishes and eat them “family style”, though I convinced them into getting an appetizer first.  We ordered the vegetarian spring rolls, which were pretty standard fare.  I don’t really know why I would expect anything special, vegetarian spring rolls all taste the same.

The first of the three dishes we ordered was the pad thai with tofu (this was my idea).  I know pad thai has oyster sauce and sometimes fish stock, and is not truly vegetarian, but I like it so much.  I was told by the waitress that all of the dishes are truly vegetarian, and don’t have any fish in them.  The pad thai was really tasty, though like spring rolls, it’s pretty hard to screw up pad thai, except for making the noodles mushy, which they were not.

Next up, panang curry with soft tofu, which was a brown curry (with, I am told, no fish stock), which was nicely spicy, and one of my favorite dishes of the night.  Aaron and Kara insisted that we have it with soft tofu instead of fried tofu because we ordered fried tofu with the pad thai.  I just went along with their bizarre notion that you can’t have two dishes with fried tofu (I would have all dishes with fried tofu if I were in charge).  Regardless, the curry was very tasty, even with the soft tofu.

Finally, a dish that I have never tried before in my life.  Sauteed morning glory with garlic.  I had never had morning glory before, and I thought myself to be familiar with most types of vegetables.  This dish is very similar to broccoli rabe, and if broccoli rabe and spinach had a love child, this would be it.  Slightly bitter, with lots of garlic for flavor, I really enjoyed this dish, and paired with the panang curry, was very tasty.

I am a big Thai food fan (even places that put “Thai” in their names), and Ruen Pair might be one of my favorite places to get Thai food.  All the food is reasonably price (cheap by LA standards), though you do have to deal with the valet parking.  The restaurant itself is very strip-mally (as you would expect for a strip-mall), and that detracts somewhat from the atmosphere, but you definitely feel that this is the place that Thai people would eat at if they ate out Thai food. So, I’ll give it four and a half cheese sandwiches, only because its not made blatantly clear what does and does not have fish or other meat dishes in it (as you would expect for an Asian restaurant).

*It means “twin house” based upon my Google translate.

Ruen Pair
5257 Hollywood Boulevard
Los Angeles, CA 90027 
(323) 466-0153

My first exposure to Thai food came quite late in life, in fact it was only a few years ago. There was a Thai restaurant across the street from where I worked in graduate school called Mai Thai. I first had their Pad Thai, followed by the Pad Wun Sen, and Mussuman curry – leading me to becoming an acolyte of Thai cuisine. My almost bi-weekly excursions to Mai Thai became a high point in my graduate career, and I was excited to discover that there was a Thai restaurant near where I worked in Chinatown, called Montien. I was even more excited by the fact that Montien is the first Thai restaurant that I had been to that doesn’t have the word Thai or something referencing Thailand in its name (such restaurants include 3 Mai Thais (or My Thai), 2 Pad Thai, a Planet Thai, a Bangkok Cuisine, and a Bangkok House), showing that Montien is the first Thai restaurant to be secure enough to not insist that it is a Thai restaurant to draw business.  I am ignoring the fact that it’s officially called Montien Thai Restaurant, as the Thai Restaurant part is subtitular.

I was with Kenny and Sam one night, and we decided to get some food in Chinatown before heading out to meet Vernon to play trivia. I hadn’t been to Montien in over three months, and thought this would be a good opportunity to get some Thai food. I have frequented Montien for lunch previously, if only to satiate my enjoyment of lunchtime Thai excursions. Unfortunately, compared to the rest of Chinatown, Montien is far too expensive to frequent on a weekly (or bi-weekly) basis. You can get a 9 or 10-dollar lunch special, which is filling, but quite scandalous considering you can get equal quality meals elsewhere for 6 or 7 dollars. While Montien is slightly expensive for a lunch time meal, it is VERY expensive for dinner. The atmosphere is quite nice, so you might consider taking a date there for a pre-theatre meal (or post-theatre), but 13-15 dollars a plate is quite steep for Chinatown.

I decided to get the Mussuman curry which can come with brown rice (at extra cost over white) under the notion that I wanted to eat something healthy before downing the offal from Razzy’s during trivia (it’s not real offal, just metaphorical). The Mussuman curry is a good blend of sweet and spicy with the chilies and peanut sauce pleasantly melding together. I would say that the quality of the food at Montien offsets the expensiveness of their dishes. In fact, I would argue that Montien is probably the best Thai restaurant in Boston, and comparable to Planet Thai (the best Thai restaurant in Lexington, KY). There are a wide variety of vegetarian options as many of the sauces are interchangeable between being a meat dish or tofu. Their tofu is the fried firm type that I always rave about, and makes every meal amazing.

When discussing the price of food at Montien, one must consider that most Chinatown restaurants attempt to recreate the bleakness of a Southeast Asian road stand. However, Montien attempts to recreate the atmosphere of a five star hotel in a Green Zone. So, I would argue that the cost of the food is acceptable, and since there is a wide range of vegetarian food available at Montien, I will give it four cheese sandwiches. It would get more if it made a better attempt to delineate what is vegetarian and what is not on the menu (as many sauces have fish stock as their base, and it is unclear if Montien uses fish stock as their base or not).

Montien Thai Restaurant
63 Stuart Street
Boston, MA 02116-4723 
(617) 338-5600