Chao Thai Too

I am sad to report that they are closed for business.
Their food was great but the kitchen was slow and service was just ok
but I am still sorry to see a promising Elmhurst restaurant close.

We waited way too long to try this place. It’s not like it’s new. Our loss.
A couple of weeks ago on a cold Saturday afternoon we took a ride out to Elmhurst. We chose «Too» over the original location since I’d read that it was larger and nicer looking. I wanted to lower the chances of being caught in a lunchtime crowd. We needn’t have worried — at 2:00PM the place was quiet. Only a couple of tables were occupied.
It’s a pretty room, more like Ayada than Sri.
We had prepared for our visit by checking out the menu on MenuPages. (CT doesn’t have a web site.) We shouldn’t have bothered — there were major differences between them. As we were leaving we grabbed a take out menu so we’d be prepared next time.
Our starters —
Grilled Pork — BBQ pork Thai style served w. hot salty and sour sauce
This was first rate — a generous portion of juicy marinated pork with a terrific dipping sauce on the side. Just a great dish.
Sweet Pork Sausage Salad — Sweet sausage mixed spicy sauce
This dish is an old favorite that we’ve been ordering at Sri for years. It’s a kind of benchmark for us; we’ve also ordered it at Ayada when they put it on their menu a few years ago. CH2’s version is very good but I’d rate it as an 8.5 to Ayada’s 9 and Sri’s 10. If you’ve never had it before and are going to CT2 it’s definitely worth ordering. If you like their version you’ll definitely love the one at Sri.
On to the mains —
Pad Garlic & Pepper Chicken
Thin slices of nicely marinated chicken, perfectly grilled. It’s dishes like this that make me love Thai food.
Phla Neux — Grilled beef spicy salad
The preparation and flavor of this dish was fine but it was undercut by the quality of the beef. It was chewier than it should have been. I’m not sure if that’s an issue with all of their beef dishes or this was a one off. On the positive side the flavor of the dish was quite good and since there are comparable salads on the menu made with pork or shrimp that might be the way to go.
The spicing levels were robust without being overwhelming, equivalent to a good Sichuan restaurant. When we were ordering we asked for medium hot and that’s what they delivered.
CT2’s menu is deep with lots of dishes that we’ve never tried before. It will definitely go into our regular rotation.

..Not worth the money I’ve had way better Thai food for half that price. however the inside of this place looks great thumbs up for ambience.

This place is another proof that NYC’s best Thai food is found in Queens: Sripraphai, Chao Thai, and now the cleverly-​named Chao Thai Too.
By the same owner as the original Chao Thai a mere 2 blocks away, Chao Thai Too boasts a slightly more decorative seating area compared to the spartan Chao Thai. There is even a large screen TV and a bar. The service is prompt, attentive, and courteous.
Their drunken noodle is the best I’ve had in New York. The fish head soup was unexpected spicy given that we asked only for medium spicy, but tasty and fresh nonetheless.
The menu is a thick book. I’ll have to come here many more times before I even get through a quarter of their offerings.

One of the best, authentic Thai restaurants in the city. Decent prices, LARGE menu. However I was kind of disappointed they changed their menu style to having photos with their food description… before their menu was a lot more sleek and modern. Perhaps it’s because they wanted to show people who didn’t understand?
Anyway, I live very close so I come here on a regular basis. I can say I’ve liked everything I’ve tried. Fresh foods and prepared very well. Their Spicy levels are on point! If you ask for Spicy, they’ll give you SPICY.
Try the catfish salad!

Authentic experience and good food. Price is reasonable. Definitely a good place to go try thai food. Don’t forget there is different rankings of spiciness. If you can handle really spicy do thai spicy.

I created a Unilocal account, strictly so I could give this restaurant a review.
This is the best Thai Food in New York City.
When I first walked into Chao Thai Too, I was confused by the HUGE menu and, the mesmerizing slide show of dishes that was displayed on loop on their TV. How can such a small restaurant have a large menu? Surely this is a sign that the food is not fresh…
I sat down with my partner, and was immediately greeted by a very friendly waitress who was extremely helpful as we flipped through the many pages trying to figure out what we wanted to order.
We started with the Homok, a Thai soufflé, or mousse-​like dish, made from Fish. I have never seen this on any other Thai Restaurant menu in NY, and I was so excited to try something new. The Homok was served warm, moist, and extremely flavorful!
We then wanted to order the Fried Snake Head Fish, which we had eaten in Thailand before and was delicious. Unfortunately on that day, they were out of it, so we ordered the Northern Thai Sausage instead. I STILL HAVE DREAMS ABOUT THESE SAUSAGES. Served with ginger, asian chilis, letuce and cilantro. The freshness was unlike anything I’ve had. I can’t wait to go back and eat this again.
Finally we closed with sticky rice, and a Red Curry. The portions are huge, and cheap for how much flavor and fresh ingredients they use. I was blown away and continued to eat, even after I had gotten full. I left the restaurant feeling like I had eaten a delicious home cooked meal — and will be back very soon!

My friend held a birthday party dinner for his wife here last night with a group of 8. They had a section reserved for us, so we were seated promptly upon arriving. I normally go to Chao Thai on Elmhurst (same owners, but much smaller establishment), and it was my first time at this location.
Definitely a lot bigger and a nicer décor. We started the night off with their fried calamari, Tom yum going grilled beef and shrimp cake. The calamari was pretty good, but I wasn’t a huge fan of the batter. It was more on the heavy flour batter side, as opposed to being light and crispy. The shrimp cake was a special of the night and quite delicious! The grilled beef was delicious! Tender and made to perfection!
However, my favorite as always remains the Tom Yum Goong at Chao Thai! I’ve had Thai food all around the world, and this place makes it the best in NY! You can ask for either the original version (clear broth) or the creamy version (which I think they add coconut milk to). Both are delicious!
For entrees we ordered various dishes that was shared among us all. Beef fried rice, Pineapple fried rice, Green Curry Shrimp, Salmon Special, Drunken Noodles with beef and one with shrimp, more grilled beef. The fried rice at this location is definitely way better than the other location. Green curry shrimp was yummy and lots of shrimp in it! I didn’t like the pineapple fried rice though, but then again I don’t like sweets with food.
The salmon was pretty good too! I didn’t try the drunken noodles here since I was already experiencing food coma from all the food, but my husband did mention that Chao Thai 1 does this dish better.
Service was attentive and great! Overall, this is s better location for a bigger crowd. However, I still prefer the original location over this, just because it tends to be less busy and certain dishes like the Drunken Noodles are done better there. All that being said, if you don’t have cash handy, then this place has the advantage of using your card!

Move over Sripraphai restaurant, there is a new Thai restaurant in town. I was so content to finally find the authentic taste of Thai foods in the USA. The kind that transports me back to Thailand without physically flying there.
If you do not like this restaurant, chances are you have grown accustomed to Americanized version of Thai foods. And that is your personal preference.
The restaurant offers a variety of Thai foods including hard to find Thai style noodles like the following:
— Beef noodle with spicy richer broth (ask for Thai spicy level if you can stand higher level of heat.
— Kuay jab, the rolled chow fun with five spice broth, pig intestine, tofu, and whole eggs.
— Yum Pla Dug foo, crispy cat fish with thinly sliced fresh green mango spicy salad.
— Som Tum, spicy green papaya. The papaya should be finely sliced than this but the flavor is spot on.
— kor moo yang, grilled pork shoulder.
— hot pot with unique sauces and broth.
I will definitely come back and try everything on the menu. The rule of thumb is to share your food and order to cover all flavors, spicy and non spicy. It’s like taking a middle way.

this place is the BEST DEAL for lunch.
I came here for lunch and got the crispy pork and broccoli. It’s hard to go wrong with this fish, but this restaurant has perfected it. The pork was the right amount of crispy and was not soggy from the sauce that the dish has. I noticed in other restaurants by the time the dish got to the table my crispy pork was just soggy pork.
I also love the soup and spring rolls that came as appetizers for my lunch special. The soup had a delicious broth that was not oily.
I gave this place 4 stars because it took a little bit to get seated.
Very clean bathroom on the plus side.

It is a good sign when a restaurant is able to open a bigger and newer second branch and that is what happened with Chao Thai. Its mini version, Chao Thai existed for a while but I was never too crazy about it. Apparently they were doing so well considering there are plenty of Thai restaurants to choose from in this neighborhood that they took over My Thai to open Chao Thai Too. I prefer their second restaurants for its décor and food quality. However, there have been times when their crispy pork isn’t crispy and they did not have some of them items listed on their menu. Price wise — it is a bit higher than I’d like it to be but the portions aren’t bad. You can share main dishes among three people given you aren’t a big dude or do not have an insatiable appetite.
I have not seen this dish in other Thai restaurants but Chao Thai Too. It is a tofu soup that gives me a nice warm and oozy feeling every time I dream about it. Great soup to slurp in the winter time or when you are feeling under the weather.
One downside is that I have ordered a couple of times from this place and both times they got my order wrong eventhough I made myself pretty clear about what I wanted. Not too happy about that.

This one is so much better than the Thai restaurant around the corner of this block. The staff might have been a bit distracted, I’m not sure why, but at least they got our order correct — they were just running around back and forth a lot.
The restaurant is clean and sleek from what I saw. They serve their ice water in this colorful plastic cups that resemble glass.
I ordered the thai iced coffee because I wanted coffee… but it’s probably not the best choice compared to the famous thai iced tea. My mistake — don’t make it your mistake too.
I ordered the green curry with chicken. I’m not sure what was wrong with the chicken, but some pieces were a bit knobby and hard to chew. The sauce was delicious and probably the most flavorful Thai curry I’ve had in a while. The eggplant pieces were cooked to perfection and it went really well with my brown rice (which DIDN’T come with the meal — huge disappointment). Do people really eat the curry without any rice? C’mon.
Appetizers — fried calamari and fried tofu were freshly made and served with this sweet sauce… looked like it had peanuts in it, so I stayed away from the dip. Otherwise, they were quite tasty!
I’d come back again! I have a crazy love for Thai curry…

For some reason the food here just doesn’t taste the same as the original Chao thai. Maybe it’s just because the change of scenery that’s playing psychological tricks on me. Still the food here is generally quality, theres much more space here, the décor is nice but simple and the best part is they serve beer and wine!

This is the evil step sister of my favorite Thai spot, Chao Thai. Evil is a bit strong but there is a distinct difference between the menus. The menu here offers hot pot selections Thai style and has a menu more geared towards Western diners. This is not a bad thing but part of the charm of the Chao Thai No. 1 is that it has an authentic Thai menu which caters to native diners and makes no apologies about it.
This venue is more akin to Sripraphai and has classic Thai dishes like beef with broccoli, mango ice cream and the like. Décor is a bit swankier than Chao Thai but service is equally friendly. This is by no means a bad restaurant as the food was great but I personally prefer the more adventurous menu at its sister restaurant a block away. Walk across the street, it’s well worth it.

I had their Pad Thai and Pad See Eiw before, and both were really great. It not only comes in decent portions, but taste good too. So, 2 stars for that.
HOWEVER, their service is really slow.
I have been waiting for my food for over 40 minutes already, and the couple who ordered after me has gotten their food before me.
I am not impressed with their slow service.

In a land full of Thai restaurants, what would make Chao Thai Too stand out? I would say their Spicy Raw Shrimp and their Long Eggplant Salad are the two must get appetizers.
The atmosphere is more modern with a larger dining room than the original Chao Thai. Comparatively, Chao Thai Too has larger portions… but the service is SLOW. Like REALLY, REALLY slow.
As a group, we ordered the following:
— Spicy Raw Shrimp — described as raw shrimp with spicy lemon sauce — MUST GET
— Long Eggplant Salad — described as grilled eggplant salad with shrimps and pork mixed spicy mint salad — MUST GET
— Lemon Pork — described as slice pork served with spicy lemon sauce — GOOD but as a group we decided that there were too many citrusy dishes on our table. Oops.
— Red Curry — with bamboo shoots, basil (and Chicken) — YUM!
— Mussamum Curry — with potato, peanut, onion (with Pork)
— Spicy Sweet Chili Paste Fried Rice — with basil, scallion, bell pepper, egg (with Beef)
— Homok — steam fish mousse mix curry — BLEH
Overall, the food was pretty good with large portion size. Good for groups to share. I’ll definitely return for their Spicy Raw Shrimp, Long Eggplant Salad, and their Red Curry. The Homok is definitely skippable. Fish and Mousse should just NOT go together.
3.5 stars overall.

More like 3.5 stars.
I am happy with the portion size here. I am happy with most of the food I have ordered here. I like it better than Chao Thai original because the space here is roomier.
The service is slow, for sure. I think they do no have enough wait staff here ergo the slower service.
Out of all the dishes I have tried at Chao Thai Too, I enjoyed the Massaman Curry, Pad Thai, Pad Thai Woon Sen (stir fried glass noodles with bean sprout, scallion, egg) and the Pla Kra Prao (fried fish fillet with basil) are excellent. I also love the Thai Iced Tea which I have with Lemon instead of milk. It’s excellent.
I would totally come again and again.

The fried spring rolls no longer come with sweet chili sauce. The chive dumplings are these thick, doughy, misshapen things that taste just awful. The seafood pad kee mao was pretty lacking in flavor and comes with the chewiest, toughest, downright rubber-​like calamari I’ve ever had. Also only two shrimps and some half circle things I couldn’t identify. I thought maybe fish balls… because they were sort of ball like, but I’m not really sure. They were pretty tasteless, I included a picture of that whole seafood mess.
Throwing out their menu, this was honestly some of the worst Thai I’ve had in a long time :/

Situated between Woodside, Jackson Heights and Corona, Elmhurst may play second fiddle — or third, or fourth, or even first viola — as far as food destinations in Queens, but that does not mean it should be overlooked. One gem that is particularly worth the trek is Chao Thai Too, a spinoff of Chao Thai (the parent restaurant is located hardly more than a block away and is equally deserving of a visit). SriPraPhai, in Woodside, is commonly bandied about as the best Thai restaurant in the city, but I recently caught some positive press about Chao Thai and to me nothing says a day well spent quite like questing for and enjoying a good meal in good company.
When seated, do not be tempted to make a snap decision to order your typical favorite Thai dishes and move on. The menu is a daunting beast in whom sections have been indiscriminately erected and cordoned off from one another by bright red font. The Appetizers section contains an impressive array of approximately 40 that range for a few pages from salads, which have inexplicably been separated at birth from those in the salad section, to larb and sausage, but is also missing some of the items that appear in the Thai Specialties at the back.
One of these dishes is the homok, a fish mousse — spelled moose on the menu, much to my delight — made with fish, egg, coconut milk and curry, a combination that produces a result that is soft and airy, unlike any fish cake you have ever had. Equally as interesting is the sai ua, a sausage that looks more like a meatloaf and is replete with flavors, many of which, such as lemongrass and garlic can be found studded in the filling.
The fried snake head fish, which is not battered, is one of a handful of dishes you can try at Chao Thai Too but not the original. The fish, which arrives in chunks replete with fins, can be awkward to eat at times, not because of the small bones you can crunch through, which are actually quite pleasant, but rather as a result of the larger ones that are too big to bite into. However, the sweet and sour sauce that is served alongside the fish easily ameliorates any of these problems. Furthermore, the snake head is one of the more dangerous and invasive species in the world; it has no natural predators and possesses lungs that let it breathe on land for days at a time. In the battle of man versus fish I feel proud to have struck an early blow.
A ginger salad with black egg, which should have been the most straightforward dish we ordered, turned out to be one of the oddest. Black eggs, which are made by preserving eggs in a mixture of clay, ash and salt, are in fact jet black and differ from your average hard-​boiled egg in many regards. Black egg yolks are creamier than regular yolks and feature a fairly muted flavor, while their whites — blacks — are a little translucent and rubbery in their texture. The salad also surprisingly turned out to be spiciest thing we ordered, while the levels of heat in other dishes that we begged for real Thai spice in barely passed muster as mild.
Stir fried frog legs with basil are a hit; the frog legs — my first time– taste like slightly chewier versions of chicken wings, except much easier to eat. All it needed was some more heat, as mentioned above. However, panang curry with duck, the most commonplace dish we tried, was also the most mediocre. Next time I will pass on the duck in return for a less fatty meat and redouble my efforts for more spice.
Chao Thai Too carries a variety of dishes, but it clearly excels in northern Thai cuisine, specifically from Isaan. I have yet to weigh in on whether it is better than SriPraPhai, but the food is great and authentic, and I would like to make a return trip. On a second time around I would like to exclusively stick to northern Thai dishes and bring a Thai friend along so I can experience real heat. Oh, and I will be sure to order the tom leuat moo, or pig organ soup with pig blood jello. I feel remorse for not ordering that one.

It seemed like just yesterday when Chao Thai was opened and became noted as one of the best Thai places in NYC and now it’s opened a second place.
Unlike the original this space is much larger with more than a dozen tables waiting for people. The décor has also been updated; highlighting the organs backdrop with slicker black furniture. The entire restaurant is spacious and wonderful. Also the bathroom here isn’t in the basement!
The food is about the same as Chao Thai so it is DELICIOUS!
On this particular occasion I decided to order two things:
1. Massaman Curry — A delicious savory and sweet curry that features peanuts and onions. Chao Thai does it pretty pretty damned well and comes thick and hearty with a hint of sweetness that you wouldnt expect from curries.
2. Duck Pad Prik Khing — One of the best dishes that I think Thai food has to offer complimented by svory and fatty duck slices. The dish is a stir fry with a sweet and spicy sauce that has been caramelized. The sweetness of that sauce comes together with the fattiness of either duck or the crispy pork and becomes something just amazing.
Given the thai restaurants in the area I would definitely choose Chai Thai over Nurasa (which is incredibly mediocre) and Boon Chu which has limited seating and really offers a different taste.