Thai Gai Yang Cafe, St. Louis, MO

This is shadow reporting on another place from Pat's Thai Restaurant empire in the Delmar Loop.  Nice modern decor, some seating areas had pretty cool looking seat cushions with pastel colors.  There are some rare Thai dishes on this menu, which is a major plus.  In particular they had Hung Lay curry, a Burmese influenced northern Thai curry dish.  Really surprised to see this dish here.  The only other restaurant that I know of in the U.S. that has this dish on their menu is the world famous Lotus of Siam in Las Vegas.  Regrettably I did not try the dish during this visit so I cannot report on it.  I went for the Yen Ta Fo.  Just ok.  No water spinach, no crispy squid, no white woods ear mushrooms, no solidified blood.  Condiments tray was just crushed dried chili's and fresh crushed chili's with vinegar sauce.  Default noodles were thin Pho style noodles "sen lek".  Server did not give options for noodles, but I would have preferred flat noodles "sen yai".  Broth was  too sour, but at least this is better than being too sweet.  I requested sugar to help with this and the waitress was happy to bring me some in a plastic cup (not a typical request, I guess).  Sugar helped a lot.  Good bowl overall, but not great.  Generous portion size and very reasonable prices.  Service was good, but again a bit indifferent to the customer.  While I was dining the servers chatted to themselves in the background in Thai about school and other things.  Good move on their part not to be gossiping about the customers who may or may not understand them (sounds crazy, but I have seen this happen in other places).  Overall not a bad place for Thai food that is not too Americanized.  Worthy effort. 

                                                           Thai Gai Yang Cafe
                                                            6250 Delmar Blvd
                                                            Saint Louis, MO 63130
                                                            (314) 862-4400

Condiments Tray

Yen Ta Fo