Food Review #3

We have been patiently anticipating the opening of a new restaurant on Roosevelt Avenue. When we first moved into the neighborhood, the already closed down restaurant was called Arca Noa Noa, another Latin Restaurant. We got a little excited when we saw that the workmen doing construction inside the new place was Chinese. This definitely signified that there would be a new Asian Restaurant opening soon. Yesterday we saw a guy in the doorway, and so we introduced ourselves and asked what type of food he would have. He said Thai. My next question was, "Are you from Thailand?" and when he said yes, we got really really excited.
Tonight Chaim and I went for our first meal at EGB Thai & American Restaurant. We learned that EGB stands for Eat Great Burgers. The two different owners couldn't decide on what type of food to serve, Thai food, or burgers, so that's the reason for the weird name.
The menu is a bit bizarre but the food...(drum roll) was very good. We ordered a little of everything so we could get the feel for the place. Half the menu is your Thai standards, and the other half of the menu is burgers with a strange combination of toppings with interesting names. There is a mixture of Louisiana Cajun, Italian and burger joint fare.

We ordered:
curry puffs- $3.75 two puffy deep fried puffs with an interesting orange juice base sauce.
Chaim ordered the Tom Yung Koong soup $2.95, spicy and good with shrimp.
U-don salad (som tom-or papaya salad) $6.00 very spicy and good.
Pad Se iew (flat broad noodle) $6.00 with beef and egg. very good.
that was the first course.
Then we finished off the dinner with:
green chicken curry- $6.00 very good.
and a U-don burger- $6.95 which was topped with sauteed garlic, onion basil and cherry peppers. very good...but couldn't eat it all so we took the rest home.

The whole family seemed to be working tonight. The father, Paul came and sat at our table and we talked food, baseball and Queens stuff. The mother would stop by the table and make sure we liked the food. The daughter was our waitress. But the classic move by the son made it really feel like a mom and pop restaurant. We asked for some hot chillies, and he brought over a ceramic spice set filled with different sauces and spices. He began to say "My mom said to be careful...." and we thought he would finish off the sentence with "...the spices can be very hot", but instead he said "my mom said be careful because these containers break very easily." I think when his mother told him that, she met for him to be careful, not to tell the customers that we could break them. When was the last time you've been told that in a restaurant??? Then he came back a few minutes later and said "my dad wants to know how you want the burger cooked." It was just like being a guest at their home.

We will definitely be going back.

53-21 Roosevelt Ave.
718-205-6063
no liquor license yet.
grand opening still far into the future.