Restaurant Thaïlande

Nearly Forty Years on Bernard

3.5 of 5

Restaurant Thaïlande has been cooking on Bernard Street West, just off Saint-Urbain, since 1987. In Mile End years that is geological. Bagel shops have been canonised, cafés have come and gone in waves of reclaimed wood, and this room has kept on doing what it does: Thai food in a dining room with traditional décor, served to the neighbourhood every evening but Monday and Tuesday.

Book the floor. The restaurant keeps traditional floor seating for people who want it, and you have to reserve it by phone, which tells you it is a real arrangement rather than a gimmick. Sit low, share everything, and order the pla prik prao, a whole fish fried crisp and loaded with garlic. Get the koung pao, giant shrimp off the grill, and finish with mango and sticky rice, the dessert that ends arguments. There is a private room for groups, and bills here stay small, about thirty dollars a head, which on a street that has learned to charge for its reputation is no small thing.

Places like this rarely make the lists. They have no chef with a television contract and no tasting menu with a philosophy attached. What they have is nearly four decades of a kitchen turning out the same dishes for the same families, and families do not come back for thirty-odd years out of politeness. Go on a Friday with friends, take your shoes off if the floor calls for it, and order the fish.

Order this: Pla prik prao, the crispy whole fish with garlic, Koung pao, grilled giant shrimp, Mango with sticky rice
The damage: $
Go: Friday or Saturday dinner with a group, floor seating booked by phone
Find it: 88 Av. Bernard O, Montréal, QC H2T 2J8