Pure Thai Cookhouse
We won yet another lottery for one of the theater shows, so we were hoping to walk into Wondee Thai. As expected, there was a line outside and a wait inside, so we didn’t want to gamble missing the show if we had waited. We instead opted to walk a block south to this restaurant which had no patrons. We were able to walk in for 2 at 5:30 PM on a Saturday night without reservations. There seemed to be 2 sections to this restaurant, a left and a right. We were seated on the left on a small table with stools.
Ambiance & Service
The ambiance felt very akin to a Japanese restaurant with a lot of unpolished wood decor.
The service was quick at churning out food for us to be able to finish our dinner within 70 minutes easy.
Food
The Thai Iced Tea ($8) came with the usual. For $8, this was pretty pricey compared to other Thai places. It definitely tasted good, but maybe not 75% more expensive good compared to other Thai restaurants.
The Crispy Tofu ($10) came with peanut and tamarind-chili gastrique. The crispy tofu reminded me of Taiwanese fried stinky tofu, where the crust is actually quite crispy and delicious. The tofu was not silky and more of that cooked texture. The sauce and overall taste of this was all pretty good.
The Ayutthaya Boat Noodle Soup ($23) came with thin rice noodles, braised beef, beef loin, meatball, beef tendon, water spinach, basil, cilantro, beansprout, and cow blood cinnamon beef broth. This was pretty small for the price, but the flavors tasted pretty authentic. The broth was rich and full of flavors. I wished they gave a little more beef tendon and off-meats. The noodles were quite good too. Just a warning that I ordered “mild” spicy, and it was a little spicy for my partner.
The Fried Rice with Crab Meat ($23) came with egg, Asian broccoli, scallion onion, and light soy sauce. The minced crab meat was quite abundant and it had a very fulfilling aroma of crab throughout the entire dish. As expected, things were slightly sweet, but my partner did enjoy this.
Final Verdict
Pure Thai Cookhouse in the Hell’s Kitchen area turned out to be a decent Thai alternative in the area with not much traffic. The food was pretty good, albeit a little pricey for Thai food in general. If you’re stuck making a Thai choice, this may be a decent option to explore if you can stomach some of the price/value ratio.
Yelp Jabs
Note that the spice level is for real here. There are menu items that say they don’t give refunds or changes if a dish is too spicy
When I ordered the boat noodles, I saw this warning here, so I did not take it lightly Real Thai heat is at a whole another level than anything else. It’s why I defaulted to mild to avoid that circumstance. Rest assured, mild was tolerable, and you can see how if it was medium, it might have been too much.
Found the noodles slightly lacking in flavor, and I don’t enjoy just throwing chili oil on things to fix them, but they do offer chili oil.
The noodles are basically rice noodles, so not sure why this Yelper was looking for flavor. Otherwise if they are talking about the sauce, perhaps they have much saltier taste buds than the average person.
Revisions
- Oct 12, 2024 - Initial revision.