Wayla

Summary

This restaurant is a current trendy Thai restaurant that we had to wait a month for our reservations. It’s actually a little hard to spot your first time. It’s basically where people are standing around aimlessly and down the stairs in a very hard to see nook. If there are no people, look for a sign that has an arrow pointing down to the basement.

We opted for the garden/patio seating, and luckily the weather was a perfect mid 70s temperature with very little to no breeze.

The spiced Thai tea was pretty good. I’m looking at menu pictures, and it seems maybe this is a new thing? I got it with bulleit bourbon, and it paired really well. It’s not as sweet as one might think, but also not as strong either.

The sway wayla has Brooklyn gin, butterfly pea blossom, cucumber, lemon, and shiso. I thought it was good, especially if you like gin.

The moo sarong has crispy noodle wrapped pork meatballs, white pepper, and sambal chili. I didn’t think that I would enjoy this as much as I actually did. The noodles around the meatball provide a nice crunch, and the meatball was quite flavorful too.

The kua kling kling has wok-fried shrimp, galangal, and spicy southern Thai chili paste. Just a fair warning that this is actually very spicy. It’s not the spicy that hits you and leaves. It actually lingers. Nonetheless if you can last it, it’s quite flavorful. The shirmp was super plump and fresh. The sauce has a light curry consistency, but it heats your tongue up really quickly.

The khao pad pu has lump crab fried rice, egg, and flat chives. If you love crab as much as me, you should definitely get this. It was sublime. They gave plentiful crab meat and definitely got the flavor out of it into the rice.

The larb pla tod is a whole fried branzino with shallots, fresh mint, lime, and chilies. They basically filet both sides of the branzino and fry the meat with various spices. Some parts of the fish are fried deeply such that you can also get your keratin dose in, e.g. the tail and the edges of the fish. After finishing the meat chunks, there is still a lot of meat in the head and around the cheek bones. I think if you know how to clean the fish end to end, this is a really good deal considering how much flavor it has with all the spices.

The sticky mango rice was great. The sticky rice is similar to Chinese glutinous rice. The mango with this was a nice treat in that it wasn’t overly sweet, but still gave you that satisfaction that you are eating a dessert without the guilt.

I thought service was great. They refilled our waters, and they were prompt with our orders. Price wise, this place is definitely on the more budget friendly side. Indoors the ambiance seems to much louder than outdoors. If you have the option, definitely try to seat outdoors. It’s way more laid back.

Final Verdict

Surprisingly, I thought this is somewhere I would actually go back to. It’s definitely not excessively expensive, and it’s really good for what you get.

Yelp Jabs

To me, if I’m paying $18 for a vegetable curry, it better be the most mind-blowing curry I’ve ever eaten.

The first and only mistake this elitist made was to expect a vegetable curry to be mind blowing. If you like meat, don’t set your expectations unrealistically for vegetables.

Fried Noodle wrapped ground pork or shrimp thing- interesting and innovative but was just okay… Crab Fried Rice- tasteless to me unless you add the spicy sauce that came with it, in my opinion not worth it… Menu is not big but already 50/50, consider on the expensive side we were like meh~

First if you think about it, there’s nothing super innovative about wrapping noodles around protein. Second, the “spicy sauce” wasn’t even spicy, so I imagine their taste buds are dysfunctional. Lastly, the fact that this elitist considers this expensive tells me they don’t really dine in Manhattan.