Last Saturday, we were invited for dinner at Glow a Thai restaurant and lounge located in Bay Ridge. There, our host and owner, Anthony Loupos and his wife Chef Suwanna Amatmontri, who is from Thailand, proposed a tasting that went beyond regular Thai food. They pride on proposing street food and creative dishes, made with ingredients chosen and bought on a daily basis in local markets.
I was excited for sure because I love Thai cuisine and we were ready for a culinary experience!
So, as I mentioned, this is a restaurant and lounge. When you arrive, you face the pink lighted bar with its white stools, that definitely gives a modern and lounge-y feel to the place.
Then, the main dining room, with its large painting of Buddha.
And the exposed bricks, that give a warm feel to the place. In the back, there is a fish tank with lotus flowers on top, symbol of fortune in Buddhism.
The last element of the decor that I liked was the rotating double fans on the ceiling, that added to the modern, but simple feel of the place.
As it is a lounge, it has a wide variety of cocktails, some of them being unique, like the Drunken Gummy Bear that I tried!
Don't be mistaken: gummy bear does not only apply to the two pieces of candy used for decoration: there are gummy bears in the drink! The way they make it is using liquid nitrogen!
They put liquid nitrogen in the glass on the right to chill it and in the glass on the left to crush the gummy bears that you can still see in the bottom. Then, they will mix it with vodka, lime juice and simple syrup (sugar syrup). Et voilà !
It was good and definitely sweet, loaded with vodka!
Jodi ordered a Thai iced tea that was delicious (the recipe is standard, but trust me: I had some bad ones in the past!).
This was a very good Thai iced tea.
To finish with the drinks, before talking about what we ate, I tasted some Thai wine from Monsoon Valley, made with a blend of grapes.
I admit that I had no idea that there is such thing as Thai wine, as it is rarely featured in wine menus. It was a pretty decent wine and Anthony explained that it is perfect when paired with spicy food as it will cut through the spiciness.
Food wise, we were there for a treat! Anthony proposed to pick the dishes for us. We started off with the appetizers. Curry puffs for Jodi:
This dish, that is street food, was made with chicken, potato, onions and yellow curry, served with a cucumber relish. This was a great appetizer and there was not too much chicken, so ok for Jodi to try it. The shell was made of puff pastry, that added a nice crispiness to the dish. The cucumber relish was perfect, as it added some freshness, pairing perfectly with the bolder flavor of the potato and curry filling.
Then, there was the Thai crab cake:
My previous experiences with crab cakes in Asian restaurant has not been that successful (greasy, lots of fillers), and I was a bit apprehensive when I saw the dish coming. It was a pretty decent crab cake in fact! A bit sweet and spicy, you could definitely taste the crab that I believe was made with the meat from the claw.
The sauce with it was a sweet chili sauce that was perfect with the crab cake.
Then, they served the entrees. For Jodi, massaman curry with tofu:
They propose it with chicken, beef, shrimp, pork, but more surprisingly also with squid, sole or tilapia! The other ingredients were carrots, onion, potato and peanuts. It was served with white rice:
Massaman curry is one of my favorite Thai dishes and this was really good! Not spicy, it was very flavorful and I loved the fact that the tofu was soaked in the delicious sauce.
On my side, I got Pad Grapow Moo Kai Dow or minced pork and basil served with a fried egg.
This was a huge plate! It had lots of flavors and you could play with the different components, sometimes eating it with the egg white, sometimes with the runny yolk, and sometimes simply with the rice and pork. It was a bit spicy, but clearly, if it wasn't, it would not have been a successful dish. It is not that my mouth was on fire, but more the spiciness started to build up in the back of my throat; the Thai iced tea was perfect then to soothe it.
Then was time for dessert! I admit that I rarely eat dessert in Thai restaurant, maybe because of lack of knowledge of Thai desserts, or simply because the Thai restaurants I went to did not propose anything out of the ordinary. The first dessert was standard I would say: mango with sticky rice:
This was fantastic: first of all, the mango was delicious and very tasty. Then, the sticky rice was generously bathed in coconut milk. This was a bit addictive.
The second dessert was off the menu: Thai iced tea ice cream.
They took the ingredients of Thai iced tea and made the ice cream with liquid nitrogen. The result was incredible! We could definitely taste the Thai iced tea and the ice cream was extraordinary creamy, the liquid nitrogen freezing it so fast that the ice cream crystals are very small, creating this wonderful texture. If you go there and they serve it, you definitely need to try!
No need to say that at the end of the meal we were stuffed! I have to say that I did not expect such a delicious meal and thought it would just be another Thai restaurant! I think what sets apart Glow from other Thai restaurants is the originality of the menu, where, on top of serving traditional dishes, they serve street food as well as creative dishes! And if you like to start with a cocktail, they go beyond just the martini!!!
Enjoy (I did)!
If you like this post or the photos, feel free to share it using the toolbar below or to write a comment!
And Remember: I Just Want To Eat!
Please note that, in accordance with the FTC guidelines, I must disclose that I was contacted directly by the restaurant or a PR and that the meal was complimentary. However, the opinions expressed in my blog are 100% my own!
Please note that, in accordance with the FTC guidelines, I must disclose that I was contacted directly by the restaurant or a PR and that the meal was complimentary. However, the opinions expressed in my blog are 100% my own!
