Thai in Downtown Toronto: dinner at Pai

Drinks at Pai

Am always game for Thai food and I always look for excuses to go downtown. So, Thai food with good friends in Downtown…well, I’m there in a heartbeat!

We got an early start to dinner on a Friday night at Pai over at the Entertainment District. There was already quite a crowd but we managed to get a table. If you were expecting to see some Thai décor with elephants, statues and silk, you might have to do a double take to see if you have come to the right place. This basement joint felt as festive as a Mexican restaurant with hints of Jamaican by the bar. The place was vibrant though and it set the mood up for a chill night with friends.

We started off with some drinks of Tom Yum Caesar, Spiked Pineapple shake, Ginger beer and Thai Iced Tea. Surely you can guess what I had to try—why, the Caesar, of course! It was just okay—not quite Caesar-ey nor was it Tom Yum-ey. The Pineapple shake seemed more interesting to drink! We figured, though, that at $15 and not much of a spike, we were in fact, paying for the pineapple... Maybe it was organic?

Pineapple drink at Pai

We got some delicious spring rolls to start with. The dipping sauce provided the nice sweetness to the deep fried vegetarian roll of mushrooms, glass noodles and sprouts. We liked it so much, we ordered another! Not that we were spying, but we saw that quite a few other tables had some sort of fries, which we promised to try next time! These were apparently deep fried battered squash fritters. Interesting...

We then moved on to our Tom Yum soup, served in an aluminum tureen and kept warm with a small flame beneath. It was delicious! This sweet, sour and spicy shrimp soup with its wonderful lemongrass-coriander broth warmed our tummies beautifully.

Tom Yum at Pai

We also had Chef Nuit’s Pad Thai with shrimp. It was yummy but I cannot quite say it was the best Pad Thai I’ve had. It was certainly so good, we ordered another! We were not hungry at all, eh?

Chef Nuit's Pad Thai at Pai

Then, we had Green Curry beef (Gaen Kiaw Wan) in a coconut. The curry was not very thick but the flavours were good. A hint of shrimp paste and tender beef made us eat more rice than we normally would. Presentation was superb, of course.

Green Curry in coconut at Pai

The Tom Yum and Green Curry both came with jasmine rice, but we still ordered Khao Pad Thamada or stir fried rice. Talk about carb-loading! This was also a meal in itself with veggies and our choice of protein—shrimp. This was something we probably should not have ordered anymore. Did I mention we were only four in our group?

Fried Jasmine rice at Pai

In terms of spice levels, we were not quite brave as to try what I had in the streets of Bangkok many years ago. We opted for Foreigner Spicy over Thai Spicy. Foreigner Spicy was spicy alright but I had a feeling that what they call Thai Spicy here was just Foreigner Spicy over in Thailand.

Nevertheless we enjoyed this good Thai meal. The servings were not huge so that makes each dish a bit pricey. One order would be good for one person and at about $15 each. My friends and I opted to share so we can try a variety of dishes, but we also ordered a lot for our small party. At the end of it, we were stuffed-- with rice and noodles expanding in our tummies! It was a delicious way to get bloated, I would say! :)