Thai Island – Bay Adelaide Center

Now that the Bay Adelaide Centre is up and running there is an entirely new slate of the exact same restaurants to review. We dedicate today’s review to Thai Island – BAC Edition (or Thai-Land, for those in the know).

Harkening back to the May 14, 2009 review of the TI at Exchange and TD you’ll note an emphasis on the poor service. You’ll be glad to know that Thai-Land continues to let us down. It could be that the servers are flummoxed by the newly-opened and overcrowded food court, but the way they sharply and abruptly ask for your order it makes one wonder if they’re trying to get your order in before you can change your mind and decide to get down with an Extreme Pita next door.

The menu is your standard array of non-descript Pan-Asian delights, including lemon-grass chicken, a variety of curry dishes and General “Thai” Chicken*. Better than your standard dish at a Manchu Wok or even its food-court neighbour Szechuan Express – BAC Edition, Thai-Land offers a large variety of dishes at a standard price of about $8.00.

Summary

Best thing about Thai-Land: Two separate counters - one for “a la carte” Styrofoam box meals and the other for special orders of “mung” (a noodle dish with an unfortunate name if you believe urban dictionary), pad thai or soup - means you have a variety of ways to consume 75% of your daily sodium in one sitting.

Worst thing about Thai-Land: They’re still not very nice.

What makes Thai-Land unique: An extra charge for noodles over rice limits your starch choices for the cost-conscious high income PATH luncher.

Overall Ranking: PAT out of PATH

*As an aside, this reviewer would like to take a short break to discuss the amazing coincidence that so many different Asian cultures have found a way to separately yet concurrently converge on the concept of a red/orange heavily battered chicken dish, each invented by its own generals with surprisingly similar names. Were General Tao, General Tso, General Tsao, General Gau and General Thai all related or simply a group of military men brought together by their love of the sweet and spicy? After some serious research this reviewer believes that the various names stem from the root term “Zuo Zongtang” which literally means “mountains of cornstarch and trace amounts of broccoli”. In any event, whoever these generals were, I salute them!