True Thai
$$ - average
Thai
A Thai restaurant on East Franklin
True Thai's chef originally worked at a 1,200 seat restaurant in Thailand, and now creates the same dishes for Minnesotans in a smaller venue. All of the dishes are made from scratch with fresh ingredients, and unlike many Thai restaurants in the US, the food has not been Americanized.
Added by Dave Rolsky on Apr 26 03 (updated Feb 1 04)
Reviews
lynn, you re not the only one who has dealt with the completely rude owner. he usually takes your take out order on the phone. he is inexcusable. friends had raved about this place to me before. i tried it and did indeed think it was good but nothing exceptional. i though it was on the expensive side. a dollar or two more than im used to spending on vegan thai entrees. i used to do take out quite a bit because i was close. i put up with the owner who was rude every time i called my order in. his wife is so friendly and actually likes customers. but i no longer go to this restaurant at all now because i asked the owner about a dish. i wanted to make sure there were no eggs in it. he said they never make it with egg but of course when i got My order home, there was egg in it.
This place had gorgeous presentation, the server was clear about what could be made without fish or oyster sauce and my food was great. I ordered the green chili and basil dish with mock duck and asked for it to be served medium spicy - it was fantastic. My sister raved about the food, saying she's eaten at about 50 Thai restaurants and this was the best she's ever had. My favorite part was the presentation - it feels like you're eating at a really fancy place even though veg dishes are all under $10 dollars.
The 7 vegetable medley is pretty good, too.
I LOVE this place! I have had the ginger stir-fry and the basil stir-fry and both were excellent. It is the best Thai I have had in the Twin Cities. YUM!
An earlier review said that all the stir-fry dishes have fish sauce. They may come this way normally, but if you request it, they won't add it. Our waittress also brought us dipping sauce w/out fish sauce since we requested it not to come in our entrees. Service!
I was pretty pleased with True Thai. They even had some appetizer selections you can't find in many Thai places (fried purple yam - though I didn't check the vegan status). The food was pretty good, and the service was friendly.
the service isn't the best, but the food is good for the price. many dishes can be made without fish sauce if you ask ,except most of the curry sauces are pre made w/ fish sauce, but the massaman isn't. its damn good too w/tofu! try the chili tamarind stir fry or the green chili holy basil(with mock duck). both are super good when veganized!
My husband and I went there and we had a very disturbing experience. We would never go back there. We asked for a vegan curried mock duck and vegan spring rolls. I can tell you that they don't know what vegan or vegetarian means. They put fish oil in everthing but they tell you on the menu it's vegetarian ! The sauce that comes with the vegetarian spring rolls has fish oil in it and the other dish we ordered had it in too. We did tell the waitress when we ordered to make sure there were no animal products in our food and we still got the wrong thing. We asked to speak to the manager to address the issue of fish sauce in the vegetarian entrees. We told him fish sauce is not vegetarian because it has fish fat in it. (by the way many Asian restaurants do this). Actually we talked to the owner about this and he was so extremely RUDE!! He actually told us to go eat somewhere else and walked away! We were shocked! The assistant manager came over and apologized to us and didn't charge us for the meal. He told us many have complained about the same thing and he was going to try to do something about it. It was very upsetting to encounter this kind of response from the owner himself. He really copped an attitude. He was the worst we've ever encountered with this kind of experience. The problem with these Asian restaurants is they advertise vegetarian entrees and then flavor them with fish oil. We will never go back there. It was no way to treat a customer. We were not mean about it when we brought it up.
I have a hard time not liking a restaurant that does a good vegan curry, and this place does do it well consistently. Appetizers like fried tofu aren't remarkable, but are still good.
Good atmosphere, nice decorations, and decent food. I tried the Red Curry and the Spinich Peanut Curry dishes. Both were tasty, but unfotunately I wanted to order a wok dish. All the wok stir fries unfortunately have fish sauce in them--vegetarians beware.
The veggie spring rolls were dull, with not much to recommend them, but all was magic once the entrees arrived.
We ordered drunkard's noodles and green curry, and both dishes were fantastic, complexly flavored, with a wonderful balance of ingredients. I will definitely be going back.
My companions were much more enthusiastic about their food than I was. So it's possible that the bland tasting tofu stir-fry that I ordered was an exception to the menu.
I asked the owner about their curries - they are all made in house but are all pre-made with MSG. If this has since changed please post a correction.
True Thai has some of the best Thai I've had in the Twin Cities, with a caveat for vegans and vegetarians listed below. Having lived in Thailand, and having been to at least 100 or more Thai restaurants around the world, I know what Thai food should taste like, and this place is awfully close to the real deal. Ingredients are fresh and light, well-spiced, colorful and fragrant. Prices are reasonable (in the $8-10 range) and they offer unusual options, such as curry puffs (similar to Indian samosas) and a tamarind stir-fry.
My only gripe is this: the menu doesn't clearly list what is and isn't vegan and I'm always suspicious of places when I have to tell them "no fish or oyster sauce or shrimp/anchovy paste." The waiters should tell us outright that some dishes use fish sauce, lest many innocent veg*ns make a false assumption and end up eating fish bladder. True Thai's curries can be made vegan, though if they're using pre-made curry pastes, it might have some sort of fish already mashed into it---the waiters seemed to be on top of this when I asked, but given the hustle and bustle of the place, I'm worried "no fish/oyster/shrimp sauce" specifications might get lost in the frantic kitchen somewhere. So that's my caveat: the food is good, but as a vegan, I'm skeptical of their commitment to me.
I've been to True Thai twice, on a Monday and Wednesday, and both times the place was packed (mostly with university students and professors). That said, we only had to wait five or ten minutes for a table. Service is prompt and friendly, if also hurried. Street parking isn't difficult to find in the area.