Again, it’s no secret I love Thai food (enter exhibit A, B, and C). So when my friend asked me to tag along for some Thai food at Bua in the UES, I was like hell yeah.
The ambiance inside is intimate and super cute. Slightly tropical theme, which makes sense, but otherwise modern and elegant. Great cocktail list as well.
The menu is extensive with a whole array of different categories of food. Obviously as per the name, Bua also serves ramen and robata (kinda like Japanese BBQ) which is interesting for a Thai place.
These were the Fried Wontons – crispy fried homemade wontons, stuffed with minced chicken served with sweet chili sauce. The shells were super crispy and stuffed with a good amount of chicken.
Rock Shrimp Lychee – crispy rock shrimp tossed with cream lychee sauce. A little too sweet for my taste, but the plating on everything is phenomenal.
Prob my fave dish of the evening. Khao Moo Dang – organic roasted BBQ pork, crispy pork belly, sweet sausage, hard boiled egg and cilantro with brown sauce over rice. Whatever this “brown sauce” was I literally could have drank it straight, it was that good. That, mixed with the succulent pork pieces, salty sausage, and gooey egg yolk… so fucking good.
As a creature of habit, I also got the drunken noodles. Pad Kee Mao – broad noodles mixed with onion, basil, tomato, bell pepper, young peppercorns and wild ginger. The green peppercorns not only looked adorable but also had mild flavor that permeated the dish.
Drunken noodles go by a few differently spelled names in Thailand. Here it is “kee mao”, but at San Aroy it is “kimao”, and the Wikipedia page spells it “khi mao”. Same thing; pretty much pronounced the same way too.
The overall plating and aesthetics Bua was throwing at us was absolutely gorg. Who would’t wanna take a pic of this for the ‘gram?
For dessert we capped the night off with sticky rice and mango. Not my favorite, but at least the mango was super ripe.
So basically we found the cutest Thai restaurant to dine-in on the UES. Check it out for yourself.
Website: buathairamennyc.com
Address: 1611 2nd Ave, New York, NY 10028
taleitalei 