Thai restaurants Archives

Thai Esan

March 17, 2017

Thai Esan is a small and unassuming (and easy to miss) Thai restaurant located in a strip mall on Ringgold Road in East Ridge, Tennessee.

I still have plenty of places that I need to try, but after almost 6 (SIX!!!!!) years of writing about Chattanooga restaurants there are times that I feel like I’ve been everywhere and pretty soon I’m going to run out of new places to try. Totally irrational, I know, but the truth is that I can’t be everywhere and there are always new places opening that I don’t know about (not to mention long-standing secrets that I need to be told about).

I posted on my Facebook page recently asking for my readers to tell me some new places that I needed to try. Multiple Thai spots were mentioned, which caused me and Philip to develop a craving for some noodles. It is not difficult to make us crave Thai food (by the way, will someone please open a Thai restaurant in Hixson? Please and thank you.). One of the places that was mentioned was Thai Esan, which is located on Ringgold Road near the Food Lion complex (in the strip mall where Cakemakers, Etc. is located).

Thai Esan is located in the former home of Mom’s Thai Kitchen, another spot that I was told by multiple people that I needed to try and never got around to before they closed up shop. I have no idea if there is any common thread (other than Thai food, obvi) between Mom’s and Thai Esan, but I did not want to make the same mistake twice.

We headed out to Thai Esan around 4:00 on a Saturday afternoon. There was only one other couple in the restaurant dining and several to-go orders were picked up while we were there. It’s a pretty bare-bones place…not a lot of decor, and the booths need to be reupholstered or at least patched. It was clean, though, so it was all good.

A server quickly greeted us, brought us menus, and took our drink orders. We both decided to get a Thai tea because it is just so good, and we also got an order of spring rolls (4 spring rolls per order). The spring rolls were hot and fresh and the dipping sauce sweet and just a little spicy. The Thai tea did not disappoint, with the sweet black tea spice that you expect from Thai tea and a generous splash of half-and-half.

Chattavore followers, you know that I love my pad Thai. I just can’t order anything else when I visit a Thai restaurant. I know that I should, but I like to use the excuse that if I always order pad Thai that I can be consistent with giving a review. So….I went with the pad Thai with chicken. I was not disappointed. It was a generous portion – I only ate about a third, then had more for dinner the following Monday, and Philip had the rest for lunch one day. This is a lot of food. The noodles were sweet and a little bit spicier than most pad Thai that I’ve had (though I ordered it without spice). The chicken was very thinly sliced and cooked well, but I would have liked to have had a little bit more chicken just for a balance of protein and carbs.

Like me, Philip has his usual these days, ever since discovering pad see ew at Thai Chili. Unlike me, he is a little bit braver with the spice and went for “medium”. He ordered tofu as his protein, as his visits to Hong Kong Chinese restaurant have helped him discover a love for tofu. Everything was well cooked (the tofu was a gorgeous golden brown and it did have a great flavor from the sauce). He did end up regretting the medium spice, though. Apparently Thai cooks have a little bit of a different definition of “medium” than he does, and he ended up spending much of the meal picking out little pieces of fresh red chili from the dish in order to avoid breathing fire. He did say that aside from the heat, the food was delicious.

Thai Esan is relatively quick and very casual. The food is very tasty, but be careful with the spice levels unless you know that you can handle it. The prices are pretty much on par with other Thai restaurants in the area and the portions are huge so you are likely going to get more than one meal from it.

If you’re looking for some tasty Thai food in East Ridge, give Thai Esan a try!

Thai Esan is located at 4330 Ringgold Road, Chattanooga, Tennessee, 37412. They are open Monday – Friday, 11 a.m. to 9 p.m., and Saturday – Sunday, 12 p.m. to 9 p.m. You can call them at (423) 668-8924. They do not have a website, but you can like Thai Esan on Facebook.

58 Teriyaki Grill

March 9, 2016

58 Teriyaki Grill is one of the great restaurants in Chattanooga to get delicious teriyaki, hibachi, or Thai food!

A few weeks ago, Philip and I visited Thai Chili in Ooltewah. A reader suggested 58 Teriyaki Grill, which I’d never even noticed even though I travel Highway 58 a few times a week. This past weekend I decided that I was craving chicken teriyaki. Our choices were 58 Teriyaki Grill and Teriyaki House (in East Ridge). Since 58 Teriyaki Grill was closer, we decided to go there.

When we walked in, we immediately noticed a sign to order at the counter. We were quickly greeted by a very friendly cashier/server, Hope. I immediately knew what I wanted – chicken teriyaki. Philip started to order hibachi steak, but then he noticed the Thai menu to the right of the regular menu. Hope urged him to order something off the Thai menu, so he decided to order pad-see-ew with chicken, which he just tried for the first time when we went to Thai Chili. We also ordered a couple of spring rolls.

We seated ourselves in the dining area, which is dimly lit but very nice. Straws and chopsticks are in a glass on the table (BTW: one of my bucket list items as of last week is that I must learn to eat with chopsticks). Hope brought our drinks along with forks and napkins. Our spring rolls came out quickly and she warned us that they were very hot, so we waited a few minutes to eat them. They were extremely crispy and filled with cabbage and noodles. They were simple and delicious.

Our entrees came out almost immediately after our spring rolls. My teriyaki chicken was served with a simple fried rice (the only detectable vegetable in the rice was corn) and sautéed vegetables (broccoli, carrots, and cabbage). The vegetables were very tender and lightly coated in the sweet and sticky teriyaki sauce – I would have liked more carrots and broccoli, though. The chicken was cut into perfectly bite-sized pieces and browned until just a little bit crispy before being coated with that wonderful sauce. It was fantastic. The rice was nice…as I said before, very simple, but with a good texture and flavor.

Philip was given the option of ordering his pad-see-ew mild, medium, or hot. He went for medium. At first as he ate it, Philip commented that he thought that the spice made it a little more interesting than what he had at Thai Chili, but as he continued eating he started sniffling and remarked that if he were to order it again he would probably go for mild because it became so spicy that the spice distracted from the flavors of the dish. He loved the flavors, though…I think pad-see-ew really has replaced Panang curry as his go-to Thai order.

Hope came to our table several times to check on us and make sure that we had everything that we needed. She was extremely bubbly and helpful and thanked us profusely for coming in (and she didn’t even know I was a food blogger!). As we walked out Philip gave her a Chattavore card and we met the daughter of the owner, who also thanked us for coming in. They told us that they hoped we’d be back, and we will. The prices were good (right at $20 for my teriyaki – $5.99, Philip’s pad-see-ew – $9.99, and two spring rolls – $.99 each), the place was very clean and nicely decorated (I was especially intrigued by the reservations-only Thai lounge!), the people were so friendly and welcoming, and the food was delicious. Definitely worth a trip.

58 Teriyaki Grill is located at 4762 Highway 58, Chattanooga, Tennessee, 37416 (in the same strip mall as United Grocery Outlet). Ignore the hours on the menu I’ve included below; Hope told us that they are open Monday-Friday, 11:30-2:30 and 4:00-9:00 but they are open 11:30-9:00 on Saturday. You can call them at 423-296-2899. They don’t have a website, but you can like 58 Teriyaki Grill on Facebook and follow them on Twitter (@58Teriyaki).

For the menu, click here and here.

Thai Chili Asian Bistro

February 17, 2016

It may seem unassuming and out of the way, but Thai Chili Asian Bistro serves excellent Thai food in Ooltewah, Tennessee!

This weekend, Philip and I decided to head out to Ooltewah to try Aji Peruvian restaurant…it’s been on my list for quite some time now. When we got there, we discovered that they aren’t open on Saturday. Oops. I guess I should have check the hours!

No matter, though, because we had a backup plan. A friend had recommended Thai Chili a few weeks ago, and since it was just a couple of miles away we just zipped over there to check it out.

When we walked in, there was only one table occupied (it was 2:00 in the afternoon, so no big surprise that they weren’t crowded) and Kristen, the server working, seated us immediately. It’s a small space, maybe 10 to 15 tables (that’s just an estimate) and is decorated very nicely. Plus, their restaurant inspection is hanging on the wall and the score was 100. Nice.

They were still serving lunch, which is served from 11-3. The lunch menu consists of appetizers, entrees, rice and noodle dishes, and curries. We ordered waters and spring rolls, which are vegetarian crispy fried spring rolls served with a sweet chile sauce. They came out very quickly – impressively so – and were very hot and fresh. Kristen confirmed that they are made in-house (they were that perfect…they looked like they must have been made by a machine!). The chile sauce was very sweet and just a little bit spicy. Our meals were preceded by coconut soup, which is a perfectly flavor-balanced mixture of coconut milk, broth, lime, mushrooms, and green onions. It was a wonderful combination of sweet, sour, and salty. Delicious.

Since pad Thai is my standard Thai restaurant order, I decided not to buck tradition for my post. I ordered shrimp pad Thai, which was $1.00 more than chicken, beef, or tofu pad Thai. Pad Thai, for those who aren’t familiar, is thin rice noodles stir-fried with eggs and scallions, served with bean sprouts and crushed peanuts. As with our spring rolls, we were amazed at how quickly our food came out – we were still eating our soup! It was a good-sized portion, but not outrageously so. Everything was perfectly cooked, with noodles that were just a little firm and nicely cooked shrimp. Thai food is really all about balance, and like the coconut soup, the pad Thai was wonderfully balanced with sweet, salty, and tart (from a squeeze of lime) flavors and lots of contrasting textures from the rice noodles, the shrimp, the bean sprouts, carrots, and peanuts. This pad Thai was as good as any pad Thai I’ve been served in more established Thai restaurants in Chattanooga.

Philip typically orders Panang curry, but today he decided to go off script and order pad see-ew instead. Pad see-ew is wide rice noodles sautéed in a sweet light brown sauce with egg, broccoli, carrot, and your choice of meat (Philip chose chicken). He took one bite and declared that this was now his favorite Thai food order, replacing Panang curry. I was shocked, as he has been eating Panang curry pretty much exclusively when we visit Thai restaurants for 10+ years. When I tasted the dish, though, I completely understood. The brown sauce was very flavorful, with fish sauce clearly being the prominent flavor component (please don’t let the name fish sauce scare you…it gives an amazing, complex “umami” – that is, savory – flavor component to anything you add it to). As with my pad Thai, the textures and flavors all had amazing contrasts and balance. It was delicious.

The prices weren’t bad either. With the spring rolls costing $2.95, my shrimp pad Thai costing $7.99, and Philip’s pad see-ew costing $6.99, the total before tax was just under $20 pre-tip. The atmosphere was nice, the food came out incredibly quickly, and Kristen was a great server. She told us that she eats there every day, including on her days off, and that she loves every item on the menu.

Thai Chili Asian Bistro is located at 9203 Lee Highway, Suite 12, Ooltewah, TN 37363 (in the Food City plaza). It’s a very unassuming location and very easy to miss – it’s between China Rose and Liberty Tax. They are open Sunday-Thursday, 11-3 and 5-9:30, and Friday-Saturday 11-10. You can call them at 423-777-5055. They do not have a website, but you can like Thai Chili Asian Bistro on Facebook.

Sweet Basil Thai Cuisine-February 16, 2013

February 17, 2013

Philip and I have been eating at Sweet Basil for years. Odd that I haven’t reviewed it yet, right? Actually, we went to Sweet Basil shortly after the inception of Chattavore in May 2011 and I started writing a post, but it was the end of the school year and that just isn’t a good time for me to do much of anything. The post never got finished and thus is now referred to as “the lost post”. When I updated my tags and created my recipe and restaurant index last month, I finally deleted the poor, forlorn post. Still, Sweet Basil deserves my love so finally we ended up back there yesterday. There was no planning ahead on our part; we had no idea where we were going when we left our house but after a marathon shopping trip to the School Box to spend some of my classroom money, it was close and sounded good to both of us.

At three in the afternoon, you may have expected it to be dead but it wasn’t. Not that it was packed out or anything, but there were several other tables occupied. We were immediately seated, though, after taking quick note of the lunchbox special including soup, salad, a spring roll, and chicken Panang curry (there may have been some other things but I didn’t notice). The tables were set with a plates, ornately folded napkins (which the server unfolded and placed in our laps), dinner menus, and a sushi menu. This is a phenomena that I wish someone would explain to me. Sweet Basil has not always served sushi and I am assuming that they started after Rain Thai Bistro opened and started serving sushi. I’m sure the sushi is good and I’m sure these places serve it on popular demand, but these are Thai restaurants. If I want sushi I’ll go to a Japanese restaurant. Why does a Thai restaurant need to serve sushi? So confusing. But I digress.

Anyway, we’ve kind of fallen off the bandwagon of using our Adventures in Dining Guide for every blog post. We did it last week but sometimes you just aren’t in the mood for the restaurants found there. Lucky for us, though, there was a Kids First coupon for $5 of $25 here at Sweet Basil. Yippee! Usually we order some spring rolls (crispy fried spring rolls served with tamarind sauce) but Philip was drawn to the basil rolls today so we decided to order those. The basil rolls are not fried. They are made with rice paper wrappers filled with thin rice noodles, a thick stack of sweet basil leaves, lettuce, and a single piece of shrimp each. They were served with a sweet and tangy plum sauce. Fresh and delicious, these made me want to make some unfried spring rolls at home. Look for a blog post soon(ish). We will order these again. At some point we would like to try the golden basil cups, crispy basil leaves with a shrimp, chicken, and corn-based filling.

This is one of those places that every time I go, I think “I need to branch out and order something other than the usual” but I just can’t bring myself to do it. I always order the Pad Thai. I think I ordered the lunchbox special once and, while I liked it, I found myself longing for my beloved Pad Thai, so I decided that branching out probably isn’t worth it. When I ordered the Pad Thai, the server removed my plate because they serve their Pad Thai in a large dish that’s kind of like a plate/bowl hybrid. The Pad Thai is typically served with shrimp, but the server asked me if I wanted shrimp so I assume that sometimes people order it with chicken, beef, or pork, or meatless. I definitely wanted the shrimp. Pad Thai is not spicy hot so it doesn’t have a chili pepper denoting the spiciness level, but you can request it with additional spice. Of course, I did not. The medium-wide rice noodles are stir-fried with a sweet & sour sauce with eggs, tofu, green onions, and shrimp, served with mung bean sprouts, chopped peanuts, and a lime slice for topping. Perfection. It’s unlikely I’m going to start ordering anything else here any time soon.

Like me, Philip always orders the same thing: Panang curry. Usually he orders pork, but today he decided to order beef. Panang curry is a one-chili-pepper spicy dish but Philip decided to up the spice factor to two chili peppers (which harkens back to the time we ate at Thai Smile for lunch years ago and the guy behind us ordered his curry with four-chili-pepper spiciness. Whoa, man. Crazy.). The time that I ordered the lunchbox special it came with chicken Panang curry and I found the standard one-chili-pepper spiciness to be too much for my wimpy taste buds, but Philip has a much higher heat tolerance than I do. For someone with a high tolerance, this curry doesn’t really start out spicy but the spiciness builds as you eat it. The server brought out a plate with the curry on it as well as a container of plain sticky white rice, which she scooped onto the plate that was preset onto the table. Panang curry paste is made with chili peppers, cilantro, Kaffir lime rind, and a variety of other exotic and not-so-exotic spices and seasonings, then mixed into a coconut milk based sauce and served with stir-fried sliced meat and peppers (green and red bell peppers). Philip ate most of it and declared at the end that he could finish it but he wouldn’t.

I was terribly sad that I didn’t have room for dessert. Perhaps next time I will go back on my word and have some soup and a Thai salad (with peanut dressing) so that I can have space for some sticky rice with mango or maybe some coconut or green tea ice cream. Not this time, though. I also am dying to try Thai iced tea, which is sweet with condensed milk, but I’m thinking that maybe that’s one of those things I’m going to have to make at home because it’s unlikely I’ll ever pay to purchase it in a restaurant. Anyway, before the coupon, our total was $31. The server was quick to take our coupon when she cleared the table, bring back the check, and run our credit card. They also kept our water glasses filled and they are always very, very friendly. The ladies at the table behind us even got their picture taken with one of the servers! We love Sweet Basil and so far it’s our favorite Thai food in Chattanooga (while we’ve only reviewed one other, we have tried other Thai restaurants prior to the existence of Chattavore), though we have heard great things about a couple we haven’t gotten around to yet. Stay tuned.

Sweet Basil Thai Cuisine is located at 5845 Brainerd Road, Chattanooga, TN 37411 (across from the Wal-Mart complex). You can call them at 423-485-8836.

Rain Thai Bistro-April 20, 2012

April 22, 2012

Dinner out on a Friday is such a rarity for us….we don’t do crowds or waiting very well, so the only way we will go to a “sit-down” place on a Friday or Saturday evening is usually if we have reservations. I was planning on making one of my farmers market meals Friday night for dinner (roasted chicken, potatoes, and salad) but Philip needed to head over to the Bonny Oaks area to pick up his paycheck so we decided to go to Hamilton Place. We were trying hard to think of somewhere local to eat in that area-there are not many places (I guess the rent’s outta control!). I suggested Sweet Basil Thai, but Brainerd Road is not a fun place to drive on Friday or Saturday night (well, it’s never a fun place to drive, but especially not on a weekend night) so we decided to go to Rain instead.

The atmosphere at Rain is pretty fantastic. It is beautifully decorated. We were seated in the bar area at a table that we felt encouraged people to be that couple (that’s what we call couples who sit on the same side of the booth when dining out together-no offense if you are part of one of “those” couples!) because it was a large booth with a large table, made more for 3 or 4 people than 2. We worked it out, though. They have an area where the tables are sunk down into the floor…you sit on a cushion on the floor around the table but you put your legs down under the table. I’ve sat in that section when I’ve gone to lunch with colleagues but Philip never has….we should have asked to be seated there. There were not a lot of people there when we arrived, but our section filled up very quickly after we got there. Good timing!

Our server, Angelia, took our drink orders (water, duh!) very quickly, and we also decided to order some spring rolls. The funny thing is, I always think of spring rolls as soft (not fried) rolls wrapped in rice paper, but Sweet Basil and Rain both serve fried spring rolls. The wrappers are not as thick as one would find encasing a traditional Chinese eggrolls, but rather thin and very flaky, and they are vegetarian, containing cabbage and carrots. They are skinny and rolled up super tight and served with a slightly sweet and slightly spicy dipping sauce. Very tasty, though I’ll have to try the unfried rice paper version some time.

Here’s the problem I have when I go to Thai restaurants: I love pad Thai. I love it so much that I can’t seem to bring myself to order anything else. I just can’t do it! Well, I think I ordered fried rice at Rain once because I wanted to try Thai fried rice, but then I spent the whole meal wishing I had some pad Thai (even though I liked the fried rice). I looked over the menu about ten times trying to pick out something else to order, but I kept coming back to pad Thai. Of course, it also seemed like every time I found something that sounded interesting it would have the word “spicy” in the description. I know a person as obsessed with food as I am “should” be into spicy food, but I’m not. Weakness, I suppose. So, I broke down and ordered the usual. Interestingly, they ask here if you want the pad Thai “mild, medium, hot, or Thai hot”. I’ve never been asked what heat level I wanted my pad Thai at any other Thai restaurant. I justified my order by saying that “a lot of people order pad Thai….I should review a popular dish, right?????”

Pad Thai is basically medium-wide rice noodles with a sauce that is sweet, salty, and sour all at once. It has chicken, shrimp, tofu (in a very small dice and fried crisp), bean sprouts, scallions, and crushed peanuts. Lime wedges are included on the side for squeezing over the top. This is a huge plate of noodles (as you can see) so I probably only ate about half. Delicious and fresh. (On a side note, I love to make Thai-style rice noodles at home. I’ll have to post that recipe some time.)

Philip usually orders pork Panang curry, which is pork and vegetables in a coconut and curry sauce (too spicy for me) and it took him a while to decide not to order it this time. He decided instead to get the sweet and sour chicken, after our server assured him that it wasn’t just like the usual sweet and sour chicken served at every Chinese hole-in-the-wall in America (not that there’s anything wrong with that). This dish definitely didn’t have the same “Thai” feel as the Panang curry, but it wasn’t the usual suspect either. It was a fried chicken breast, sliced into thin strips and served with onions, peppers, carrots, and pineapple in a red but not Technicolor sauce. The sauce was not the candy-ish sauce usually served alongside or poured over sweet and sour chicken…it was actually a ketchup or chili-sauce based sauce that was spicy but not too much so (I took a bite). Philip said that it didn’t get spicier as he was eating like the curry usually does….he has a pretty high tolerance for spicy but usually has to stop at some point because it just gets too hot to handle. He too got full well before the plate was empty.

Angelia offered us dessert but we were definitely too stuffed for dessert. At some point I’m going to have to do a soup/salad combo so I can fit some sticky mango rice pudding or fried bananas in….we got a good laugh out of the “brownie and ice cream” on the dessert menu. Is that a Thai brownie? Ha. They also have a kid’s menu which includes chicken strips and cheesy noodles, which is always a little odd to see on an ethnic menu, but I guess they have to have something for everyone.

I’m not going to mince words here….Rain is not my favorite Thai restaurant. Sweet Basil is and probably always will be (although there are a couple of places I’ve yet to try). (Funny that I haven’t reviewed Sweet Basil yet, but we actually went there for a blog post almost a year ago and lots of factors resulted in me never writing the post.) Still, the food is tasty and the atmosphere is lovely. I hear their sushi is good as well (the idea of sushi at a Thai restaurant has always made me snicker a little) but I haven’t tried it myself yet. If you are in the area, skip the chain restaurants and give Rain a try!

Rain Thai Bistro is located at 6933 Lee Highway, Chattanooga, TN 37421 (in the Rush complex). You can call them at 423-386-5586. You can also visit their website, rainthaibistro.com.