The King is finally back, risen from the dust and rubble of it’s former location across the street.  But does it still deserve the crown of tastiest, fastest, and cheapest thai food in Toronto?

Salad King has always been a fast yet deliciously good and cheap stop for Thai food in Toronto.  It’s a favourite among Ryerson students, alumni and pretty much any Torontonian who frequents downtown.  Unfortunately, last April 2010, a wall of bricks came showering down onto the street just mere steps from Salad King’s doors.  Salad King had to shut it’s doors, but in the meantime, the owner decided rather that instead of waiting to see if the building could be repaired, he would take the spot above Foot Locker just a few steps away.  Reaffirming that he made a good choice in moving the restaurant, the former building also happened to be burnt down by arsonists last December.

It’s been a long year, and after millions of dollars in renovations and a few months of delays, the King is finally back.  Despite it’s new location, not much had changed which is a good thing.  The long cafeteria style steel tables and benches are still there, but added are a few booth type seating areas which I personally absolutely love (sorry folks, I just wasn’t big on rubbing elbows at the long tables with people I didn’t know). When you first walk in you’ll notice that the decor has taken on this sort of web 2.5 twitter-ific bright over-the-top graphic-ey design element to it.  I guess the thought going into it is that it would appeal to the 20-somethings, which are the main clientele of this place.  But being a 20-something, I’m not really a big fan of the printed artwork up everywhere, but I do love the overall aesthetic of the new place with it’s dark hardwood and steel meshed together.  Though the new place is on the second floor above the Foot Locker, there is an elevator you can take up to it if you have difficulty climbing stairs.

So on to the food.  We ordered our three favourite dishes from the past to see if they still stood up to what we had remembered.  Those three dishes are the chicken panang curry, vegetable pad thai, and spicy fish.  Right away we noticed something different – the prices have all gone up by about a dollar.  Okay, that’s easily forgiven.  Prices do go up frequently and they did just spend tons of money on building the new place.  Plus, $8 to $9 for a good thai dish still isn’t too pricey.

Thankfully, much like in the past, service at the King is still top notch.  Your glass of water is always always nearly kept topped off, the servers are usually asking you how everything is every 5-10 minutes, and the food comes relatively quick.  Another favourite feature about Salad King is that you have to choose how many chilis you want in your meal.  I believe the number is between 0 to 20 but people rarely ever go above 5 in my party.  I usually settle with 2 as it that gives the meal enough bite, but without leaving too much of that lingering chemical burn feel on your tongue and throat after each mouthful.

Chicken Panang Curry

If you love the panang chicken, like myself, then you’ll notice that the above photo looks a tad different from the old panang chicken you used to get.  Instead of getting the dish in a giant plate with rice mushed on one side and the curry chicken everywhere, they instead put it separately in a bowl.  On the upside, this does give the meal a cleaner presentation.  However, on the downside, there’s less curry.  In fact, there wasn’t as much chicken pieces in it as there was before.  The good thing is though it’s still incredibly yummy

Vegetable Pad Thai

The pad thai is still an excellent choice at the King, especially the vegetarian one.  I do love the soy pieces they put in it.  However, much like above, there’s less pad thai than there was in the past.  Perhaps also, by raising the prices, they’ve lowered the portion amounts to help get back the money they’ve lost? Who knows…

Spicy Fish

Finally, the spicy fish.  The sauce that they use is sort of a sweet but savory type of watery sauce that every kernel of rice absorbs.  That’s actually what makes this dish so great is the sauce they use.  The fish pieces were also pretty good, as they were in the past, but once again, there were only 6 tiny pieces of fish in the whole dish.  The amount of fish used to be a lot more plentiful in the past.

Without a doubt, I’m glad that Salad King is back.  The food is still great, the service is top notch, and the place is always bustling.  However, I’m a bit saddened by the portion control that’s going on with the dishes.  It could just be opening pains (since today, the 22nd, is the first official day of the reopening), possibly cutting the amount of meat to save costs, or even just holding back the amount to make sure they don’t run out today.  No one really knows and they could definitely up the amounts in a few weeks once they figure out what their daily stock requirements are.  Regardless, I still love Salad King and highly do recommend you go back again!

Just Thai is just ok.  I don’t eat Thai food that often and haven’t actually consumed any of it in months, but I’m pretty sure when you order something that says in the menu that it’s supposed to taste like peanuts, it should taste like peanuts, not pineapples.

Maybe I’m starting this review on a bad note because the food wasn’t overall that bad albeit a little pricey. We started by ordering the appetizer sampler which is a mix of some of the appetizers offered on the menu.  Satay shrimp (which I asked to replace with chicken due to my allergy), cold rolls, mango salad, crispy beef rolls, and fried calamari.  The mango salad was excellent with a sprinkling of crushed peanuts all over it.  The fried calamari, chicken, and the beef rolls were okay too but were made even better with the dipping sauces you get with it.  Unfortunately, I felt the cold rolls contained a bit too much lettuce.  As you can see in the photo, nearly 85% of the roll was lettuce.  I’d rather them remove half of the lettuce and give a smaller roll.

The appetizer sampler

We ordered the Island Chicken (with Mango Chicken being our first choice but we felt since the appetizer sampler came with mango salad that we’d be all mangoed out) and were looking forward to it’s “peanut flavour”.  Unfortunately, it came tasting more like pineapples than peanuts.  In fact there were no peanuts on it at all.  Mind you, it wasn’t awful tasting, it just wasn’t what we were expecting.

The Island Chicken... which tasted more like pineapple than peanuts

It seems like if you’re interested in trying Thai food then I’d say your best bet would be to head over to Yonge street and check out the Friendly Thai.  But if you’re looking for good service (the waiters were quick and quite friendly) and decent food that could be Thai with a few alterations, then go ahead and check out Just Thai.  The food isn’t bad, but it just isn’t what I was expecting.

Saigon Sister was popular?

If you want cheap eats near the Yonge/Bloor area, everyone knows (aside from fast food) that you’d just head over to Ginger.  Alternatively, you can now head across the street to Hue’s Kitchen, which is a lot like Ginger.  Well, I guess that’s probably because it’s owned by the same people.  Hue’s Kitchen offers pretty much the same stuff Vietnamese/Thai cuisine that you can get across the street for roughly the same price.  But they do have a few interesting additions to their menu.  They offer butter chicken, caramel chicken, and even breakfast.  But aside from a few sauce changes, it’s essentially the same stuff.

Antony, Tona, and myself decided to go check it out today and order a few different things from their menu that aren’t really offered at Ginger.  I went with butter chicken served with naan and mango chutney.  Antony went with the caramel chicken-mango, and Tona, decided to be brave and go with pad thai.  I say ‘brave’ because everyone knows that Ginger’s pad thai isn’t the greatest.  Actually, let me widen that statement — any pad thai in Toronto isn’t that greatest.  Why?  Because, everyone seems to use ketchup in it!  Sara is actually on an ongoing hunt to find a place that doesn’t use ketchup in their pad thai.

Caramel Chicken-Mango

Much like at Ginger, you’re given a numbered card stand to place on your table and wait for your food to be delivered.  first came Antony’s caramel chicken-mango.  First off, you may notice, it doesn’t really contain much “caramel” sauce on it.  It didn’t really have much of a taste to it at all, oddly enough.

Second up was my butter chicken.  The butter chicken uses the same pieces of chicken breast from every other meal on there, just that they’re smothered in butter chicken sauce.  The sauce also doesn’t really taste that much like butter chicken sauce, but more like a thai curry.  It was somewhat spicy.  But hey, where’s my mango chutney?!  I asked the cashier (as the flyer said “with mango chutney” while on the board up top, it made no mention of it) and she said that they removed it because of people not liking it that much.  I can see why since I can only remember eating mango chutney with crunchy papadum which this meal doesn’t have.  But the nice cashier brought me a side.  Oddly enough, it also lacked rice.  So you were just getting butter chicken with naan.  The problem is there’s way too much soupy sauce to not have this with some rice, so you have to spent an extra $1.50 for some rice with the meal.  Also, the butter chicken costs a staggering $9.50 while the other meals ranged from $6.50 to $7.50.  I think $8.50 or even $7.95 would be more reasonable for the cost of it, but I guess I’m just a bit of a penny pincher.

Butter Chicken and Naan

Tona’s pad thai was ketchup-ey, as expected.  I can’t say much more about it other than she wasn’t really a fan of it and found it to be a bit too greasy.  I’ve had pad thai a few times at Ginger and I think if they just took out the ketchup, it would make it a heck of a lot better.

So if you’re looking for a fast and cheap place for lunch near the Yonge and Bloor area, then go ahead and give Hue’s Kitchen a try.  I feel like they’re trying to go with more of a Spring Rolls type eat-in restaurant with the decor and design of the place but unfortunately the quality of the food just isn’t as high.

Average Price: $6 – $9 per entree
Hours: Opens at 7:30am for Breakfast (yes, breakfast)
Address: 774 Yonge St.
Phone: 416-967-0404
TTC Directions: Get off at Yonge/Bloor station, walk south half a block on the west side of Yonge