Wayla
There seems to be new Thai, Vietnamese and Chinese places popping up every week. Wayla is the latest and I can hardly wait to go back. The food is excellent. Home style Thai food is the speciality and the dishes had the perfect balance of spice, vinegar and heat. There is indoor and outdoor seating. We were lucky to grab a spot outside while the weather is still perfect for al fresco dining. They have a nice list of cocktails too!
We shared a variety of plates starting with their take on the green papaya salad. Thinly sliced pieces of papaya with dried shrimp, roasted peanuts, a few cherry tomatoes, purple cabbage and green beans doused in a lime vinegary dressing with just a few sliced chilis for heat. Perfect.
I’m a sucker for good chicken wings and these fit the bill. Plum sauce marinated fried chicken wings and toasted rice. The meat slid right off the bone and crisp but not too crisp.
Sliced pork belly topped with a Thai salsa of shallots, spicy peppers, scallions and yellow peppers. Take all of this and wrap it up in lettuce and take a bite.
Spicy green beans mixed with plump soft bites of tofu and slices of red pepper.
There are two branzino’s on the menu. I am not a huge fan of the deep fried so we went with the banana wrapped branzino that comes with a spicy chili dip on the side. The fish is perfectly cooked and falls off the bone. The meat is succulent.
I loved this. Rice with big chunks of fresh crab meat, ginger, eggs, and chilis. I couldn’t stop eating this.
And last but certainly not least the soft creamy mango alongside sweet coconut rice. My favorite Thai dessert.
I should have nabbed a menu to be more specific about the subtle taste of each dish. Nothing had garlic – a bonus for me. Everything had perfect balance, nothing was heavy handed. Each dish was delicious. The people next to us were diving into some other dishes that made me want to return again to try more. I hope they are able to keep the level of deliciousness up. This place is a winner.
Comments (Archived):
The meat slid right off the bone and crisp but not too crisp.That is great! I can taste it with that description. (I am going to start using that expression in non food situations such as ‘the hotel was fabulous the meat slid right off the bone’) [1][1] Intentional non-sequitur
Business opportunity (maybe) for someone to produce (a kickstarter?) dining plates for restaurants with their logo instead of those standard restaurant plates. Such a waste to have such a nice presentation food wise and then have a customer take a picture for social media with a diner grade plate. I think (possibly who knows w/o the cost) paying extra for plates with a logo (that will get the name out of the restaurant in pictures) even with that cost might make sense. This is similar for take out from nice restaurants. They should have a logo or even just a label on the packaging so when it’s in the refridge you are reminded of the place it came from. [1][1] I did something similar with a business I had with printed delivery boxes with logos and it worked very well since the boxes always sat around an office (after being delivered) and were a constant reminder. None of my competitors did this since the boxes cost more and that is all that they focused on).
Im coming to NYC (my original home) for 3 days next week and I want to eat jewish food… J
Katzs
It’s hard to pick which dish looks the best, but if I could pick I would chose the spicy green beans mixed with plump soft bites of tofu and slices of red pepper and the rice with big chunks of fresh crab meat, ginger, eggs, and chilis. See, I told you it was hard to pick one dish, lol. The green beans looks delicious, but the mixture of eggs and crab meat stimulates my curiosity. I have to try that one day. I’ll get back to you when I tell you of my experience. =)