There’s never a bad time to order a bowl of Thai curry. But in the fall, when the temperature first dips below 50 degrees for a few days, a piping-hot bowl of spicy curry becomes medically necessary.
This made the recent opening of Thai Curry on Nicollet Avenue serendipitously timed, especially as I have been, let’s say, reconsidering my relationship with my current takeout Thai place of late. (One bad experience can be written off as a fluke, but three in a row—well, you know what they say about the definition of insanity.) So this weekend, as I queued up my horror flicks and prepared for a cozy evening indoors, I decided to give the new Thai spot in town a try.
There’s a Thai Curry House in Burnsville, but Thai Curry is unrelated; it comes instead from the family behind Mela Thai Cuisine in West St. Paul, according to Southwest Voices. (And “Thai Curry” isn’t the most specific search term in the world, so if you’re trying to find them via Google you’ll probably want to try popping a “Nicollet” on there.)
Though a few tables for dining in are scattered around the restaurant, Thai Curry’s focus is on takeout. There’s no delivery option, nor is there one at Mela Thai—who needs it, when you’ve essentially perfected the takeout experience? The staff was super friendly, with everything ready ahead of its scheduled pickup time, carefully packaged and steaming hot in a bag that surprised me with its heft.
Returning home, it was a delight to find that Thai Curry’s cream cheese wontons ($6.99 for eight), a must-order for me, are the platonic ideal, sweet and crispy with a thinner wrapper and the exact right filling-to-casing ratio. (Don’t ya just hate when it’s all wrapper and no cream cheese?) A serving of gooey mango sticky rice ($6.50) was practically big enough that you could make a meal of it alone, and bites of it were wonderful interspersed between the hot curries.
Then there are the curries themselves. Thai Curry’s Massaman curry ($11.99+) simply rocks, with huge hunks of potato and thinly shaved carrots and other veggies swimming in a hearty, thicker broth. The beef was sliced rather than served in chunks, which made it easy to sweep through the sauce and coat with flavor. Like the Massaman, the green curry ($11.99+) here is sweet, but balanced in richness and warmly spiced.
Each was packed with flavor and served with fluffy rice, and I wasn’t left wanting for heat; on a four-step scale ranging from “mild” to “very hot,” I’ve found “hot” pushes the boundaries of what I can comfortably chow down on assisted by frequent palate-cooling breaks for beer. They also helped explain the bag’s weight; these curries were stuffed with veggies and protein.
I’ll say it: Thai Curry tops the other takeout Thai places in the area. I’ll absolutely be back, and I’m not the only one—that’s a common sentiment among the folks who’ve reviewed Thai Curry on Google so far, where it boasts a perfect 5.0 rating roughly a month after opening.
Thai Curry
Address: 3752 Nicollet Ave., Minneapolis
Hours: Monday-Saturday: 11:30 a.m.-8:30 p.m.
