The Cleveland area actually has a huge supply of Thai good restaurants, and though we have a few favorites, we are still looking for our go-to spot. In Thai Thai Bangkok Street Food (13735 Madison Ave, Lakewood, OH 44107) we have a worthy contender. We first came across Thai Thai at the Asiatown Night Market over the summer, where they were selling bubble tea, chicken skewers and fried noodles. We were excited to learn that they also had a bricks-and-mortar spot in Lakewood, so we decided to pop into Thai Thai for a pre-concert meal.
The menu at Thai Thai is limited – which in this case is a good thing – the focus is on Bangkok-specific street foods instead of a more typical wide menu. The owners are from Bangkok and have taken care to bring over some of the more unique street foods from the city. There are favorites on the menu like pad thai and pad see eiw, but also more unique dishes like Yen Ta Foe (which M actually tried as a street food in Bangkok) – a pink soup made with fermented soybean paste and roasted duck noodles with bean sprouts.
On a Saturday night, Thai Thai was quite crowded, but the owner Kiwi was efficiently making the rounds at the table and was quite friendly with recommendations. To start, we tried the North East Sausage, ($5.50) which is homemade pork sausage made with rice and spices, as well as Tom Yum soup ($3.50), which is a sweet and sour soup with lemongrass and mushrooms. The soup was particularly delicious, and was more complex than the other Tom Yums we have tried in the past. For mains we ordered Kra Praow (bottom dish below – $9.95), spicy chicken, rice and basil; and Larb (top dish below – $9.95), a spicy chicken salad with lemongrass, red onion and cilantro.
The mains were both delicious, with moderate spiciness, but nothing too overpowering. All of the ingredients were super-fresh, clean and simple. Thai Thai’s dishes really did remind us of the food we had in Thailand. For dessert they also had kabocha squash custard and mango sticky rice ($5 each). However, we opted for one of the many flavors of bubble tea – taro. We enjoyed the more unique dishes available at Thai Thai, and this factor helps bring a new element to the Thai food scene in the Cleveland area. We will definitely be back to Thai Thai soon!
Eating The World 