In South Buffalo and Riverside, family-run place with $13-and-under menu shines
Over time, restaurant-goers develop a list of places that solve particular issues they face.
Where can we take mom that will make her happy?
Where can we host visitors to make them wish they lived in Buffalo?
Where can we feed a party that includes dedicated carnivores and vegans who believe meat is murder, for as little money as possible?
The last one, for me, brings up Family Thai’s locations on Babcock Street in South Buffalo and Tonawanda Street in Riverside. In recent years, Family Thai has been one of my go-to answers for dining parties who want multicultural adventure on a budget.
What makes Family Thai easy to recommend is the consistency and reliability of this family-run operation. May Zin Oo and Than Than Myint own the Babcock Street Family Thai. Thet Lwin owns the Tonawanda Street location.
That Riverside location is open an hour later, but that’s the only significant difference between the family’s restaurants. The menu is the same at both Family Thais: a galaxy of Burmese, Thai, Japanese and Malaysian soups, salads, curries, sushi, and stir-fries.
With most entrees $13 or less, Family Thai is family dining territory.
Salads from the Burmese side include tea leaf salad ($8.99), of shredded cabbage, fried beans, peanuts, chopped tomato, and tea leaves fermented like sauerkraut. Dressed with garlic oil, fried shallots, and lemon, it’s a vegan crunch riot.
Ginger lovers will thrill to its cousin, ginn salad ($8.99). Shredded pickled ginger replaces the fermented tea leaves for a bracing, refreshing plate of assorted foliage. Crispy tofu salad ($8.99) tosses fried soybean curd cubes with cucumber, shredded cabbage, onion and cilantro in a sesame ketchup-like sauce.
Thai salad standouts include green papaya salad ($8.99), with green beans, chopped tomato, shredded carrot, fried garlic, and peanuts, with a dressing of lime juice and fish sauce. Yum woon sen ($11.95), a seafood noodle salad, posits poached shrimp and squid in lime vinaigrette with cilantro and peanuts.
Soups star here, starting with coconut curry noodle chicken soup ($8.99). With fat egg noodles, chicken, and sliced hardboiled egg in coconut curry broth, and a crunchy bean fritter on top for texture, it’s a soothing, amiable potage that’s more of a hug than a thrill ride.
Wonton noodle soup takes a more Chinese angle. Chicken broth holds egg noodles, sliced roasted pork, choi san greens, and pork-stuffed wontons, dressed with fried garlic, and scallions.
Fried fish noodle soup ($12.99) offers gently gingery chicken broth with milk, pickled mustard greens, tomato, and cilantro, with pan-seared tilapia. It’s a Malaysian-Chinese dish with gentle charm.
Pork larb ($10.99) was a satisfying version of the minced protein salad, sluiced with chile and lime-and-fish-sauce, bound to be eaten on a pile of white rice.
While Indian and Thai restaurants offer a rainbow of curries, in Buffalo restaurants at least, there is one kind of Burmese curry. Long-cooked onion, ginger, garlic, and gentle curry makes a semisweet mahogany sauce that’s a threat to no one.
Family Thai offers Burmese curry with pork, chicken, fish ($9.99) and beef ($11.99), each cooked to tenderness, and served with rice.
The egg curry ($11.99) is my favorite, for the way it transforms the humble staple into a sublime dish. Hardboiled eggs are peeled and then deep-fried, giving them a golden-brown surface. Simmered in the depths of Burmese curry, the eggs cut like meatballs, elevated from breakfast fare to dinnertime satisfaction.
Tired of quick-service places treating you like a number? For the same kind of money, you could enjoy the benefit of Family Thais.
South Buffalo: 150 Babcock St., familythai-restaurant.com, 716-322-1102
Hours: 10 a.m.-9 p.m. Friday-Wednesday. Closed Thursday.
Riverside: 863 Tonawanda St., familythai-restaurant.com, 716-783-9285
Hours: 10 a.m.-10 p.m. Friday-Wednesday. Closed Thursday.
Parking: street
Prices: appetizers, sushi $5.99-$10.99, dishes $8.99-$17.99
Wheelchair accessible: Tonawanda St. yes, Babcock St. no
Gluten-free: salads, curries, mango sticky rice, rice noodle soups
Vegan: most salads, potato curry, vegetables stir-fries
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