Kluaymaïpa

Need to shave a star off of this place after a very mediocre meal there last night.
We were the first to arrive, the place was empty and super, duper quiet. I mean monastic quiet, or worse, macabre quiet.
One of the first rules you learn when organizing experiences for people is that music fills a space, and when the doors open to your establishment, you need to have some sort of music playing to fill it up and give it some life. That was not the case for us, and we wound up eating in an eerie atmosphere the entire time even after another table of guests arrived and whispered to themselves.
But beyond the bizarre energy the food was really mediocre. Our chicken with cashews was slathered in a super sweet, almost ketchup sauce, the chicken in our sautéed rice was extra dry, but the worst was our beef in green curry that had small, stringy and tough pieces of meat in a boring curry with interesting but very bitter baby eggplants in them. We left most of the dish intact, and the sweet owner didn’t inquire why. Now he knows.

I checked this place out because it’s close to me, and funnily enough I never saw it on what is a quiet, largely uninteresting street, bordered by large apartment towers, but close to the Canal. The owner, a friendly old French guy who came back from Thailand with (surprise) a much younger wife (the cook), is pleasant, but the food, predictably tailored for the locals. Locals being on this evening artsy student couples from nearby comm. schools, a table of geeks from a gaming/​animation company next door bragging about that one time they went to Thailand on a cheap package and did shots all week, and the local bobos looking for a bit of the exotic. I asked for my green chicken curry very spicy. Didn’t get it. The «spicy» meat dish (not!) was tiny for 14 €. But it’s a friendly place, and I might, in a pinch go back for their lunchtime special which is around 14 €. Otherwise, probably not.

Ce petit Thaïlandais à deux pas du Canal St Martin regorge de belles surprises. Tout d’abord, ce restaurant très simple est situé dans une rue calme et agréable, à quelques minutes de l’effervescence du Canal St Martin. Le propriétaire des lieux, Harold, nous accueille avec bienveillance puis nous explique qu’il a vécu 30 ans en Thaïlande, qu’il est rentré en France avec sa femme et le cuisinier d’un grand hôtel thaïlandais, ce qui présage du meilleur pour la suite des événements ! Et nous n’avons pas été déçus ! La carte propose des prix très raisonnables et c’était délicieux: assortiments de petites entrées, pad thaï, curry aux crevettes, beignets de bananes, etc… Bref, une excellente adresse !