Bodhi Tree

I always walk past Bodhi Tree and they always have a sign outside advertising some kind of fantastic deal, on lunch and noodles at dinner. I had to find out if it was really a bargain.

For around $8, you get a noodle/rice dish and two appetizers--the price will vary depending what protein you choose. My main dish was chicken pad thai. It definitely has a lot more flavor than most pad thais I've had in New York, but it's pretty heavy--it's so sweet and sticky, so it may not be suited for everyone's tastes. However, it's still good, and the chicken is quite moist, so it might be worth trying if you're feeling adventurous and want something a little heavier than the bland, Americanized Thai food that is so common.

My two appetizers were the crab cakes and tofu tom yum. The crab cakes weren't very good, I'm afraid. They don't have very much flavor; I'm not sure I would've known it was supposed to be crab if it wasn't called crab cakes. They're fried with some kind of batter too, and there is much more fried batter than filling. However, I liked the tom yum a lot. The tofu was nice and soft, and the vegetables were well-cooked but still had some bite. The broth itself was very flavorful, and the sourness really boosts your appetite.

Last week I posted about another Thai place, Spice. I would say the noodles at Bodhi Tree and Spice are pretty much the same "level;" they're well-cooked and flavorful. The tom yum at Bodhi Tree was better, but just ever so slightly. The fried appetizers at both Bodhi Tree and Spice were misses for me, and were really not worth getting. Although the food is pretty similar in these two restaurants, I would definitely choose Bodhi Tree, for the much more reasonable prices, as well as the decor; Bodhi Tree feels much more cozy and not as gimmicky-trendy as Spice is.

Bodhi Tree
58 3rd Ave. (between 10th and 11th St.s)

Spice

Sunday was Easter, and I was hard-pressed to find somewhere open for lunch. I tried three restaurants before finding one that was open: Spice.

I ordered quite a lot, but hey, it's a holiday. My first course was lemongrass tom yum with tofu (you can choose from various proteins for many of the dishes, including chicken, shrimp, and beef). It was nice; clear broth and really flavorful. However, the tofu was the horrible Western kind; crumbly, dry, and chewy. Americans need to learn that soy curd is not the same as tofu.

Next were the curry puffs. Man, these were some nasty curry puffs. Let's start with the pastry. It's very thick, and was fried at a very high temperature for, frankly, not enough time. The outermost part of the pastry was flaky and crumbly and completely fell apart when I pierced it with my fork--the crumbs flew all over the table and I felt like a four-year-old. The inside of the crust, on the other hand, was raw. It was translucent and chewy and impossible to cut with my fork. And then there's the filling. It was brown, but so bland and devoid of any curry flavor. And it had this odd, bitter saltiness that I could only taste in the back of my throat. It's also a lot worse plated than it looks in the picture. The little dish of sauce/juice is propped on top of the curry puffs, and as soon as you move one of the curry puffs, the tiny dish tips over, giving you no choice but to try the sauce. P.S., not good either.

My main course was chicken pad kee mao (rice noodles in a spicy sauce with egg and various vegetables). This is one of the better dishes here; it has a lot of flavor and all the components were well cooked. My problem with this dish is that it, like the curry puffs, is oddly plated. The noodles sit in a bronze-looking bowl that has a rounded, not flat, bottom, so it tips and wobbles whenever you try to pick up any food. And the metal handles are directly attached to the bowl, and are way too hot to hold to stabilize the bowl.

To drink, I got the Thai iced tea. It was not bad, but I would've preferred to save my money. But I will say, the glass towered well over my mouth; the straw was actually eye-level. Now, I know I am 5'1", but this glass is built for giants; you would need to have a very long torso to drink from the straw without holding the glass in your lap.

Spice is very popular, and I'm sure they have great dishes, but I didn't get to try many of them. However, one thing they really need to reconsider is plating. My meal was an example of a restaurant whose plating was so overthought that it interfered with my dining experience. And if a restaurant is making it hard for me to eat, and almost like they don't want me to eat their food, I would be more than happy to save $30 on a mediocre meal.

I just wanted to announce here that Thai people don't use chopsticks! People make the mistake of thinking that every Asian uses chopsticks, but one of the King Ramas switched the nation to using forks and spoons after dining with westerners and finding those utensils elegant. A guy at the next table (let's just say he's not Asian) decided to impress his friends by using chopsticks to eat his Thai fried rice. The Chopstick Rice Shovel is quite challenging for even very Chinese people to perform, and I watched him eat his rice grain by grain. Around twenty minutes after his friends had finished eating, he was still not even halfway done. He finally became too embarrassed and switched back to his fork.

After lunch, he started picking his teeth with his finger.

http://www.spicethainyc.com/spice/home/index.html

Various locations