So you’ve heard there’s good Thai food on the west side of Boise, and you want to know if it’s worth the drive past the Connector. Fair question. The answer is yes, and also: it’s not that far, calm down.
Baan Thai sits on a stretch of Fairview Avenue that asks nothing of you aesthetically — strip mall, parking lot, a sign that won’t win any design awards. Walk in around 6 on a weeknight and you’ll find maybe a third of the tables full, the lighting somewhere between dim and functional, and a server who will hand you a menu without explaining the concept of the restaurant to you. This is considered a virtue.
The menu is longer than it needs to be, which is true of most Thai menus everywhere, but a few things are worth your attention. The pad see ew here uses wide rice noodles that have actual char on them — not the pale, steamed-into-submission version you get when a kitchen is moving too fast. Order it with beef if you want something that holds up against the smokiness of the wok. The tom kha gai arrives in a clay pot that is genuinely hot, with a coconut milk broth that manages to be rich without tasting like dessert. These are not minor accomplishments.
Spice levels are real and not negotiated down automatically. If you say medium, they will give you medium. If you say hot, they will give you hot and not check in on you afterward. This is probably the right policy.
The appetizer situation is worth a few words. The tod mun pla — fried fish cakes — come out crisp on the outside and springy in the middle, with a sweet cucumber relish that has enough chili in it to remind you it’s there. Split an order while you wait for the rest. The spring rolls are fine, which is the most honest thing you can say about spring rolls anywhere.
Dinner for two, with appetizers and a couple of Thai iced teas, lands somewhere around $40 to $50 before tip. The iced teas are properly sweet and orange, the way they’re supposed to be, poured over a glass of ice with enough cream to make the whole thing cloudy. If you’re the kind of person who orders sparkling water at Thai restaurants, that is your business, but you’re missing something.
Waits are rarely long, though weekends can back up closer to 7 or 7:30. Lunch is a reliably faster affair — a handful of combination plates at prices that make you reconsider whatever sad desk lunch you had planned. The portions at lunch are not small. Bring a container or commit.
What keeps people coming back isn’t novelty — Baan Thai isn’t trying to reinvent anything. It’s the consistency. The pad see ew tastes the same on a Tuesday in February as it does on a Friday in August, which sounds like a low bar until you think about how many restaurants in this city can’t clear it. Sometimes that’s the whole point.
