Brookside Thai

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Brookside Thai
Bloomfield, NJ



Brookside Thai is one of the joints that we used to go to back then. We decided to check it out recently. One of the things we noticed is that they have undergone a significant redo of the interior---it looks more polished now.

Illustration of songkran, the water festival. Getting splashed looks like fun!

There was a time we liked coming here a lot. It fell out of our rotation when the food kept turning out too much on the sweet side.

We got a nice selection of apps.

Papaya salad. This was excellent---crunchy green papaya with a salty-spicy-sweet sauce.


Curry puffs. The filling is potato curry. Amazingly, this was very light, despite being deep-fried.

DJKung's poppa got the chicken soup. He was nice and full after this.

Pad ped (duck salad). This is always DJKung's fave. The fried duck slices are crispy on the outside, succulent on the inside. Comes with loads of veggies: carrots, lettuce, onions, scallions, and even some sliced apple.

For our mains, we got seafood fried rice and noodle soup (guay tieu gai). The waitress steered us to the fried snapper, which she said was fresh that day.

The seafood fried rice was excellent, with that nice wok taste.

Noodle soup (guay tieu gai?). I call it "pink soup." It was sweet, spicy and salty, with emphasis on the first element. We did not like it; it tasted very unbalanced and rather harsh. DJKung and his pops actually poured their soup bowls back into the main bowl.

Fried red snapper. It was prepared well--- deep-fried and crispy. However, we all agreed that it was not the fresh; the flesh just did not have that firm, clean taste.

I am quite 50-50 as to whether we should put this back on the rotation. On my more generous moods, there are not really a lot of Thai places around, so it seems that we should. On the other hand, I can count the few dishes here that I actually enjoy. DJKung felt that it doesn't quite make the cut.