Thai food is my favorite, forever and always.
I love plenty of other types of cuisine – including the food from many other Asian countries – but Thai will always be number one for me.
If I’m being completely honest, my love of Thai food is one of the reasons we chose a Thai student to be our very first international exchange student. And what a great move that was for our whole family.
But what about here in Columbus – can one find great Thai food?
When we first moved here from Dayton in 2005, I was initially a bit disappointed with central Ohio’s Thai restaurant selection. There’s an awful lot of what I’ll call mediocre, Americanized Thai food.
However, with a bit of diligence, I was soon able to find a few consistently excellent places to Thai one on. Are you ready? Here’s my list!
- Thai Grille in Westerville is quietly excellent. A small, tucked-away place that reminds me of the tiny restaurants in NYC, Thai Grille is long on quality and flavor, if a bit stretched on service at times. This is a place you go when you’re not in a rush as they typically only have one server working and the place tends to be packed at both lunch and dinner. It’s that good! Check out my rave review on Yelp after our first visit there 12 years ago.
- Bangkok Grocery & Restaurant on Refugee Road is the O.G. authentic Thai restaurant in Columbus. It’s been around forever and their food tasted so much like home to our Thai daughter that she cried when she tasted it. That’s how you know it’s the real thing. I adore the pad Thai, panang curry, pad ka pao with pork and the pad see ew here. Yum! See, now I’m craving it really bad. Note that they are still not offering table service since Covid, and they’re also closed on Mondays. Be sure to check out the adjacent grocery for great prices on Asian food items!
- Erawan Thai on Refugee Road is almost as good as Bangkok and has sit-down service and quaintly themed decor. They offer Vietnamese dishes as well as Thai; the Vietnamese fresh rolls with tofu are as good as any I’ve tasted. When you want great Thai food, head down to Refugee Road and you will not be sorry. Portions are huge here so be forewarned that you may want to share – or just enjoy lots of leftovers.
- Nida’s downtown. While I was heartbroken when the lovely Nida’s Thai restaurant closed in the Short North, our consolation is that we can still get Nida’s wonderful Thai food at her North Market location. When I worked in the Short North, we walked to the North Market weekly for lunch and Nida’s pad see ew became my go to! Chewy-soft noodles, Chinese broccoli and that intoxicating smoky flavor… yum. All hail Nida’s pad see ew, forever.
While there are certainly a few other Thai restaurants in Columbus, and more than a few other Asian restaurants that serve the ever-popular pad Thai, the four above are our favorites and the most authentic Thai cuisine that we’ve found.
Want to fight (err, Muy Thai box) me? Let me know if you have other favorite Thai places I should check out. I am always looking for new culinary and cultural experiences in Columbus and beyond.
