A new addition to the Hawaii Thai food scene is Ploi Thai, a restaurant that resides on Keawe Street across from the old CompUSA location in Kaka’ako. The restaurant is located in the building that used to house Bliss and Velvet’s. Unlike the location’s predecessors, Ploi Thai offers a truly promising culinary establishment, exploring traditional and modern Thai cuisine.
When you walk into Ploi Thai, you are greeted warmly by the hostess. As she leads you to your table, the staff behind the kitchen counter greets you as well. This warm welcome is just a sampling of the great and friendly service you will enjoy throughout the meal.
Ploi Thai is modestly decorated, with a few pieces of artwork throughout the main dining area. The restaurant is dimly lit, creating a more private and intimate atmosphere than most Thai restaurants. The use of tablecloth would perhaps be the only aesthetic change I would make to the restaurant.
In addition to the main dining area, Ploi Thai does offer a full private seating area upstairs which can accommodate quite a few guests.
The menu at Ploi Thai offers a variety of Thai favorites, as well as some unique dishes. As with many Thai restaurants Ploi Thai does offer a vegetarian selection on their menu.
After browsing the menu for a few minutes, we placed our orders. Soon after putting in the order with our server, a basket of shrimp chips arrived.
These shrimp chips were quite good, packed with flavor and the right amount of saltiness, but devoid of that terrible excessive oiliness you get from store bought shrimp chips. Certainly not your usual beginning to a meal, but in the end we enjoyed these chips very much.
The first menu item we ordered was an appetizer marked as a house specialty. The unusual name is what caught my attention, as this dish is called “Hiding Princess.” This appetizer features leaf wrapped triangles of lemon grass chicken. The presentation of the dish was quite nice, as well as the flavor.
The Hiding Princess comes with a soy-like dipping sauce that goes well with the lemon grass chicken. Each triangular serving was kept warm inside of the leaf wrapping. The lemon grass chicken itself was full of flavor, making for a pleasant start to our meal.
We ordered two main dishes to share, the first being Drunken Noodles. These noodles were prepared spicy, and can be ordered with either beef, pork, or chicken. Our chicken variation packed a great spicy kick provided by the red chili. Although marked as a spicy dish, the spiciness of the noodles did not overpower the other flavors as it sometimes does in other restaurants.
If you like spicy food, and are in the mood for some good noodles, I would recommend this dish.
The Tamarind Shrimp features fried shrimp and vegetables in a tangy tamarind sauce with chili and sweet basil. This dish offers a generous helping of shrimp! The tamarind sauce’s tangy flavors meld well with the spicy chili and the taste of sweet basil. The vegetables in this dish give additional flavor to the palate. A very well rounded and flavorful dish!
Of course no visit to a Thai restaurant would be complete for me without sampling the sticky rice. Ploi Thai’s rice compares favorably to other establishments, with the rice retaining its sticky texture without being rock solid or dry.
Final thoughts: Ploi Thai has been opened for some time now, and has undergone a few changes in its short lifetime. Since it’s official Grand Opening, Ploi Thai seems to have reached the point where it contends with local Thai restaurants like Phuket Thai and Chiang Mai. Offering a menu of good dishes, along with its excellent service, Ploi Thai is certainly one Thai restaurant we’ll keep our eyes on as it grows.
| Service: |   |
Above Average |
| Food: | |
Above Average |
| Atmosphere: |  |
Average + |
| Overall Value: | |
Above Average |
| Price: |  |
$10-$20 per person |
Ploi Thai
327 Keawe St Honolulu, Hawaii 96814
Phone: 808.566.6999
Tags: Hawaii Food, Hawaii Food review, Hiding Princess, Ploi Thai, Ploi Thai review
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