Daegu Eats | Thai Food at Ruen Thai

tofu pad thai

I don’t think we ordered enough

I don’t know how many times we have driven by Ruen Thai, located beside nearby Suseong Lake, recently. “Thai and Vietnamese Food?” We would exclaim, “I wonder if it’s any good.” Every single time. We finally decided to stop wondering and give it a try.

The best Thai food I have ever eaten was from a food cart temporarily stationed in a convenience store parking lot off the side of a dusty road in Thailand. The lady-vendor made one thing and one thing only: papaya salad. For less than a dollar we ordered some freshly made salad, packed for us to go in a plastic sandwich bag, and hurried back to our car where we greedily ate every last morsel. I cannot even begin to describe how delicious, how fresh, how subtly complex, and how flavorful that plastic bag of salad tasted.

In general I feel like the best Asian food originates from a food stand, a night market, or hunched over a low table while squatting on a plastic red stool. Ruen Thai is anything but. From the outside, the restaurant looked a bit fancy and modern, the antithesis of what I expected a legit Thai restaurant to look like. Or at least an authentic Thai restaurant.

We sat down and proceeded to order enough food to feed an army.  Salads, or at least salads without some kind of sugary dressing, aren’t exactly commonplace in Korea, so we got a little greedy when we saw a menu full of various Thai/SE Asian salads. We ordered two of our favorites: papaya salad and larb.

When the dishes began to arrive we laughed as we had anticipated much smaller portions. Ooops.

Though we didn’t have any problem finishing our plates…

The papaya salad lacked the complexity of flavors of the best-ever street food papaya salad, but then that was to be expected. It did, however, incorporate a good balance of spice and acid, and tasted undoubtedly Thai.

The chicken larb needed a bit more something, though neither of us could quite pinpoint what that something was. Maybe a little more salt or fish sauce?

Again, we had no problems finishing this dish.

Crispy fried morsels of tender squid, lightly seasoned with salt and pepper, dipped in sweet Thai chili dipping sauce. Yet another favorite of mine. Maybe the addition of some crispy basil and/or dry fried chiles would have taken this dish to another level, but as it was I could have eaten bowls and bowls. As one of the most expensive menu items we ordered, we were happy that this appetizer’s portion was quite large.

Surprisingly enough, Ruen Thai is actually a chain of Thai restaurants in Korea and the Daegu location is still rather new (I don’t even see it on their website). I don’t normally have great opinions of chain restaurants but in this case maybe it being part of a chain kept the flavors more authentic? Whatever the case, we’re glad to have finally found a good Thai restaurant in our neighborhood. It definitely satisfied our Thai food cravings.

DETAILS

RUEN THAI | CUISINE: Thai | COST: $10-15 entree | LOCATION: In the strip of restaurants across from Suseong Lake a few shops down from La Salud. I couldn’t find the exact address but it’s roughly here. If you drive down Muhak-ro, you should easily find it. | DESCRIPTION: The restaurant claims to be Thai and Vietnamese but the menu is 90% Thai with a page of Vietnamese noodle soup (pho) options. We only tried the Thai food and were pleasantly surprised. I wouldn’t say it’s the most authentic best ever Thai food we have ever eaten in our entire lives, (some of the dishes could have used a bit more salt or fish sauce) but overall the items we ordered tasted fresh, bright, not greasy, and best of all, not overly sweet. Added bonus: lots of lime and cilantro! Except for the side of pickles, the food did not taste as if it had been “Korean-ized.” Sometimes we have found that ‘nicer’ restaurants in Korea skimp on the portions (though our reference point as Americans may be somewhat skewed) — which is why we ordered so much food. Both apps and entrees were pretty sizable for the price. | VERDICT: We would probably go back as it’s close to our house and scratches our itch for Thai. Now that I know they have lime and cilantro, I am curious about the Pho.