Heed the menu that mixes apples and oranges.
In Thailand, the less-is-more approach permeates cooking. In America, however, Thai restaurants too often get bogged down with excess to appease the more-is-more norm of American expectations. Many Thai restaurants in the U.S.
While he actually has a love for the much-maligned Pad Thai, a dish that tends to get a lot of flack when it's oversaturated with ingredients, Coughlin's main taboo on such bloated menus is Chinese food—a sure sign of inauthenticity. "Any Thai restaurant that still has Chinese dishes on the menu, avoid. There are some that still do that because they think they have to. My mom told me when she had a restaurant in the '80s, no one knew what Thai food was, so you had to put a kung pao or orange chicken on the menu to get people in the door. It's 2022 now, so a Thai restaurant should just have Thai food, and a Chinese restaurant should have Chinese food.
Instead, stick to the simple Thai classics, like Le Thai's pork jerky, or a dish that Coughlin refers to as"awesome flat noodles" with bean sprouts, green onion, egg, and garlic stir-fry sauce."Less is more. Keep the menus small and tight, and it's a win for everybody."Just as inauthentic and out of place as kung pao chicken are items like cheese rolls, crab rangoon, and egg rolls.Lukkaew Srasrisuwanin Houston.