A short walk from campus to the corner of Third and Bloomfield will take you to yet another hidden Hoboken gem—Sri Thai.
Surrounded by residential buildings, the three or so tables inside suggest that Sri Thai primarily deals with take-out and delivery orders. Deciding to try out their use of online ordering sites like GrubHub and Seamless, I went to Seamless to check out Sri Thai’s menu. They so kindly list their most popular menu items up top, so from there I chose vegetable spring rolls (vegetable paw pia) and red curry with chicken (kang dang). Then from the rest of the menu I chose ginger beef (nau khing) and, for a sweet finish, fried bananas with honey.
I ended up making all of the meal decisions this time because my partner, not being too familiar with thai food, asked me to choose for him (not that I’m an expert on Thai, not even close). On a side note, as a general rule never be afraid to try new cuisines, read the descriptions, ask questions, and take a risk. You might just discover your next favorite dish. Now, back to the review.
Seconds after placing my order, I received confirmation that my order was received by Sri Thai and that my food would be ready in 20–30 minutes. My partner and I arrived at Sri Thai about 25 minutes later, the friendly woman at the register asked for my first name, handed me my order, and we were on our way.
My first reaction when pulling out the food was “This is it?” For a total of $35 (about $10 for each of the meals and $6 each for the spring rolls and fried bananas) I was expecting quite a bit of take-out. Sri Thai did not meet that expectation.
Removing the lids though, the delicious scent of ginger and spice that filled my dorm was enough to make anyone salivate, and this time was one of the few when the flavor was strong enough to match. Biting into the tender chicken of the curry, the flavors of coconut and spice filled my mouth in a very pleasing combination. Lovers of strong spice will be disappointed as this dish had just enough heat to pique the senses while not overshadowing the actual flavor. Likewise, though I could not see any actual pieces of ginger in the beef, I could still taste quite a bit of the spice throughout the entire dish. The portions were small, but the flavor was big.
After I have just finished raving about the main dishes, you may be thinking the rest of the meal was great too, and well, that depends on who you ask. My partner thought the spring rolls and fried bananas were great. I, however, thought both were way too greasy. Yes, I do realize that in order to fry food, oil is required, but that doesn’t mean the end result has to be overly greasy. I suppose I will leave the verdict on those items up to my lovely readers.
Sri Thai is better quality than your average Asian take-out, hence the slightly higher prices, but both my partner and I felt full after finishing the meal. As aforementioned, I am no Thai expert, but I definitely think Sri Thai is worth a try.
