Summer makes me crave Thai food. From Florida to New York to Maryland, I’ve always had my favorite go-to Thai restaurants for that perfect Pad Thai or pineapple fried rice on a breezy summer day, but that has unfortunately come to an end after I moved to Boston. My three-year search for a decent Thai restaurant covered multiple cities in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Maine, but all ended up in vain. There’s something missing from the flavors… Maybe it’s just too hard to get that hint of summer so far up north?
With that thought planted in my head, I wasn’t all that thrilled when a new Thai restaurant opened up right down the street. Surely it’s just another one of those generic take-out places, right? But I’m so glad that my husband decided to give it a try. It has now become one of our favorite spots and we are aiming to try everything on their menu!
Crying Thaiger, a play of words on the popular Thai dish Crying Tiger, is the first Thai restaurant in Malden and just had their grand opening last winter. The dining space feels more like a cafe: not too large, but chic and cozy with cute interior decor and a chill ambiance.
By the way, this is only a third of the tables, and they usually aren’t this empty. The picture was taken on day when they lost power in the kitchen — more on that later.
My husband loves spicy food. I’m more on the mild/medium side myself, and Crying Thaiger has perfect options for both of us. The Kra Prow with mince chicken comes with a lot of heat, but also bursts with flavor (I hate those dishes where you can’t taste anything but spiciness). The chunky version (crispy chicken basil, or Kai Krob Kaprow) is less spicy and more garlicy, crispy and tender at the same time. And definitely try the Pad Thai: very nice balance of nutty, sweet, and salty flavors, it’s the best I’ve had in a long time!
Of course, their signature dish shouldn’t be left unmentioned. Crying Tiger is flat-iron grilled steak served with sizzles and chilly sauce, I actually haven’t tried it before so it’s hard to comment on the quality, but the texture was quite perfect and the flavor was more on the sweet and tangy side. Also comes with a cute bamboo basket of rice.
Everything at this restaurant has very bold flavors, and some of them rather unique. The pineapple fried rice, for example, is different from all the ones I’ve had before. It’s made with a curry base and tastes salty and mildly spicy, rather than sweet and sour — not too authentic, I suppose? But it’s so nicely done that I don’t think anyone would actually mind the twist.
Since the place is still relatively new, their menus are constantly changing and there are lots of specials rolling out monthly. One of them last month was a color changing drink:
It comes in blue like the jar on the right, and after you squeeze a lemon into it, the drink becomes purple!
The blue base is butterfly pea flower tea. It’s a common herbal tea in Thailand and changes color based on pH, therefore the cool magic effect. Friendly reminder: the base tea tastes decent without the lemon, but don’t drink too much of it if you want it to turn purple! (I did, and although it still turned blue-ish purple after the lemon squeezing, it didn’t taste nearly as good as my husband’s).
And if you heard the beeping sound going off in the background, that was the power going out in the kitchen as mentioned before. Surprisingly, that evening turned into our best experience at this restaurant. The waitresses kept apologizing and gave us lots of extra food for free, including this drink! And a trio of coconut puddings.
But we only ended up waiting thirty minutes for food after all, not even as long as some restaurants take on a normal day. Bonus points for our favorite spot!
We’ll definitely be back to try more items on their menu and hopefully, we’ll run into another power outage ; )
