My Thai, Elmhurst, Queens

I could show you pictures of this restaurant. 

Tell you how my mother, my brother and I went to have dinner for Autumn Moon Festival but our nearby favorite Cantonese restaurant was packed to the gills, so we wound up here.

Show you pictures of the various dishes we ordered – the fried shrimp appetizer with the sweet chili dipping sauce that was alright.

The crab cakes surrounded by tofu skin that were interesting and unique, but at the end of the day, not my cup of tea.

Talk about the squid salad that looked spicy but was more vinegary than spicy, also not bad.

Tell you about the spicy lime beef that made me cry after my brother so kindly filled a spoon for me but misjudged my tolerance of spicy and left a lot of chiles on the spoon, so that I burned my throat and couldn’t talk or eat for a good 10 minutes and just sat there holding a mouthful of Thai iced tea in my mouth, trying to soothe my burning mouth and ease the tears (initially, I grabbed his iced tea again, but I was smart enough to order one for myself as well). 

Mention the duck Penang that smelled so heavily of coconut that despite my greatest desire to snag a green bean and try it, I could hardly inhale the scent for my tongue starting to itch and swell.

Describe how the pad thai, which came without any lime, was gloppy, over-sweet, and not a suitable rendition of the dish at all. 

Rave, absolutely positively f*cking rave about this dish – duck basil – which contained duck with super crispy skin, it felt like it’d been deep fried but just the skin, while still on the duck, and how tender the duck meat itself was, how fantastically flavorful this dish was, with the onions and the sauce, without making the crispy skin soggy whatsoever.  How I couldn’t stop eating this dish.

I could do all those things, but it seems moot, since at some point in the meal, a roach a mother effing roach crawled onto the table next to the wall, right next to my camera case, and I snatched my camera, camera case, peered into my voluminous tote bag, afraid something had gotten into that as well, and just wanted to throw up on the table.  I won’t tell you what happened to the roach, I won’t tell you how it wound up with the restaurant, because of what happened, but I’ll just say this: despite that duck basil being really, really freaking good – so good that this moment, I am remembering the textures and flavors and feeling bad about what I’m about to say – I will never set foot in this place again.  It’s right around the corner from Boon Chu, though their duck basil doesn’t have that crispy skin, I’ll just have to find it elsewhere. 

I told my brother that a roach automatically warranted a NOT RECOMMENDED rating on The Feisty Foodie.  He countered that I eat at plenty of dirty places, which is a fair and true statement.  He even mentioned Pho Bang, which, while not the cleanest place (it might make you cringe when you walk in, but it’s on par with Chinatown restaurants, a dingy, dirty feeling).  But I contend that I have never had a roach walk on my table at Pho Bang! and any place that happens, I never return.  NEVER.  EVER.  I don’t mind hole in the wall type restaurants with good food, I really don’t.  But the roaches stay on the ground, out of sight, away from me and my food.  And I’m fine with that.  If I can’t see it (bugs/vermin), and the food is good, then I’m OKAY with that.  You could say IGNORANCE IS BLISS, and in this case, it really is. 

Plus, My Thai doesn’t purport to be a hole in the wall.  It has nicely appointed decor, a flat screen TV playing Fox the night we went (The Simpsons was on) – they had the sound turned off but closed captioning on, which is awesome! – and boasted actual, you know, decor.  It doesn’t have the dingy feeling when you first walk in, so you’re completely lulled into thinking it’s not the kind of place you can expect to find a roach on your table. 

Yvo says: Have you been reading?  A mother effing roach walked onto the table right next to my camera, all nonchalant!  I really take issue with that because if the bugs aren’t at least staying out of sight, it implies they’re not even paid attention to or no one even tries to take care of the problem!  Absolutely not.
disgusting, not recommended at all despite the food itself being fine and dandy; maybe if they clean up their act