Bahn Thai & M returns Thai flavor to Holiday Manor

[Robin Garr]

Bahn Thai & M returns Thai flavor to Holiday Manor

If you think fried rice sounds boring, you need to try this exciting Thai alternative, deeply flavored with aromatic Thai basil and full of crisp veggie bits and meaty pressed tofu.


It’s not usually difficult for a restaurant critic to learn about new eateries around our town. Either the owner or chef clues me in with an email, text, or news release, or I’ll hear about it on social media or the Louisville HotBytes forum.

Now and then, though, an appealing new place will fly under the radar until, like Columbus “discovering” America, I stumble into it myself.

So it was the other day when I rolled into Holiday Manor, planning a quick run to Kroger, when I suddenly noticed a bright new storefront sign: “Bahn Thai & M,” it read.

Wait a minute! That’s the space where Thai Cafe, one of my favorite local family-Thai eateries, had been turning out tasty Southeast Asian fare for almost 30 years, making it the oldest surviving Thai spot in town.

Hoping to learn more, I got in touch with my friend Vichan Snow, whose parents, Billy and Chavantee Snow, had owned Thai Cafe since opening day. “My parents sold it and they are no longer involved,” he said.

After all those years, the Snows deserve a happy retirement, and I hope they’re enjoying it. And my task was clear: Check out the new Thai place, see what I think, and let all of you know.

Bahn Thai & M, the host told us, is connected by ownership with another Bahn Thai restaurant in Fern Creek’s Glenmary Center. The Moundine family joins the Klomklao family in this new property, hence the added “& M.”

The Holiday Manor shop’s menu appears a bit more compact than the Fern Creek property’s bill of fare, but it still offers a good cross-section of Thai cuisine. ...

Read the complete article with both reviews on LouisvilleHotBytes,
https://www.louisvillehotbytes.com/bahn-thai-m

You'll also find this review in LEO Weekly's Food & Drink section later today:
http://www.leoweekly.com/category/food-drink/

Bahn Thai & M
3930 Shelbyville Road
873-5561
https://bahnthaim.com/
Facebook: https://bit.ly/BahnThaiNM

Noise Level: The room was crowded but the noise was generally bearable. Levels averaged 61.9dB (normal conversation) with peaks to 67.4 dB (requiring a little more effort to be heard).

Accessibility: The restaurant and restrooms appear accessible to wheelchair users except for a few booths.

I was a tad less enchanted than you were, and was really looking forward to it as we enjoyed the Thai Cafe:

-- the menu is very Americanized . . . even Pad Thai is listed variously as "stir-fry noodle chicken" and "stir fry chicken, noodles, and ground peanuts" rather than via the name for the classic Thai dish! (some menus do have "Pad Thai" in parentheses, but not all)

-- appetizers are a mix, but although the waiter said they were actually Thai rolls the ordered egg rolls owed much more to their Chinese heritage than anything from Thailand, and there were no Thai salad rolls or other true Thai dishes. For example, "Fried Chicken wings" are listed as being served solely with sriracha sauce rather than the complex spices representing the best of Thai cooking.

-- my wife ordered the chicken noodle soup, and at the time we enjoyed it. As it happened we went to namnam the next night, and the chicken pho was so much more flavorful and complex we wondered why we ever enjoyed the Bahn Thai soup (normally Thai soups have more heat and at least as complex flavors as Vietnamese!). Campbell's chicken noodle soup is good, a bit salty for me personally but a balance of salt/sweet/sour/bitter for American tastes, and Bahn Thai's chicken soup to us was closer to Campbell than to any Asian restaurant.

-- I had the spicy/sour seafood soup at a heat level of "3". At Time-4-Thai that level is about all I can take for a complex dish with heat arriving throughout my mouth and into my throat. At Bahn Thai the heat was slightly lower (which didn't bother me), but was very one-dimensional, with heat hitting only one part of my mouth.

Re-reading, I actually did enjoy it more than it looks, and might actually get carry-out some time if it's snowing or raining as I live in walking distance. In good weather, however, I'm off to Time-4-Thai or Simply Thai!

[Robin Garr]

Yeah, Andrew, in fairness, it's not Simply Thai. I liked it, though. Maybe a lucky choice of dishes, including the one that we didn't actually order?

I agree with Andrew. We were underwhelmed, and I was puzzled by the americanized names for the dishes. I think most folks know what "Pad Thai" is by now. Service was good and very nice though.

[Robin Garr]

I just can't get worked up about the menu language, though. I figure they know their clientele - remember, this one's in the East End, and the owners have been running a shop in Fern Creek - and the fact that they want to explain the food to the unwary doesn't affect my taste buds. Again, everything we tried was very good to excellent.

I've been to the Fern Creek location twice in the past month--once with a group of six, and once with the wife. Everyone enjoyed their food on both occasions. I especially enjoyed their fried tofu.