Planet Thailand 212

I checked out this spot last night for a friend’s birthday dinner. With these large group dinners at places just chic enough to make us feel cool but just shabby enough to be affordable, I don’t expect too much. Emphasis is usually on how quickly restaurants can churn out lychee martinis and raspberry-lime mojitos rather than culinary excellence. That being said, I still think this place has some kinks to figure out.

The ambiance at PT 212 is whimsical and funky with high painted ceilings, exposed piping, stenciled walls, and a large mural of the emerald palace. Custom made globular lanterns hang from the ceiling to set the mood. If you blink, you’ll miss the unassuming DJ booth at the front. I thought it was a fantastic idea to have a DJ at a spot like this but he was barely highlighted nor utilized. Anyhow, there is a large, ornate bar in the center of the restaurant and an open kitchen in the back. I always love open kitchens. To me it shows that a restaurant has nothing to hide and it’s fun to watch your food being prepared. Our large table for fifteen was situated parallel to the kitchen so people had a nice view of either the venue or the chefs.

Planet Thailand is a Williamsburg success story which they chose to recreate in Manhattan about six months ago. Unfortunately for PT 212, they don’t appear to be doing too well. When a Manhattan restaurant is near empty on a Saturday night at 9PM, you know something is wrong. Upon sitting down I thought to myself- “this place is so freaking cute- maybe they just need some time?” In my head, I was pulling for PT 212. However, our meal was a victim of the strange phenomenon where empty restaurant = poor service. You get to a restaurant, you shudder at a vacuous, empty space yet you choose to stay because you think- hey, at least we’re not competing for service! And oh how wrong you will be. The stage is set for a lengthy painful meal in which you will be ignored by your server who is busy flirting with the sous-chef. PT 212 was no different.

Upon sitting down, we were tossed a pile of five menus for fifteen of us. Given that there were only two other occupied tables in the whole place, I would bet they had more menus available. I politely asked twice for additional menus which never came. We dealt with the assortment we had and perused the drink menu. They have a fun list of different cocktails and sakes which was great for our purpose. The waiter barely spoke a word to us and we had to grab him to place our drink order. After a long pause and me wondering if he went to Thailand to get my drink- they arrived. We began guzzling as we rounded out our dinner selections. The menu has a nice assortment of Thai food and sushi. Your standard pad thai and tom ka gai were there as well as more inventive fair such as sweet and sour squid and a decent selection of curries.

Usually in these rowdy group dinner settings I take the reigns (in all settings, who are we kidding). After giving everyone a bit of time I tend to initiate the ordering with something like “ALLRIGHT EVERYBODY READY? COOL!” And we’re off. At my end of the table we decided on a beef carpaccio roll and crispy tamarind noodles with shrimp to start. Others ordered a variety of spring rolls and dumplings. For mains we chose to share sirloin steak with eggplant as well as chicken and shrimp with cashew nuts. Others had sushi platters and chicken with broccoli.

At numerous points during the meal there were empty drinks with no effort made by the waiter to offer us more. I could not find the waiter for a long period of time to order more. I caught the attention of a bus boy and asked if he would kindly get our waiter and he looked at me like an alien and ran away. Oh well. If I wasn’t having such a fun time, this meal would have been prime for ECHSH’s all over the place.

Finally our waiter returns with appetizers. The beef carpaccio roll was delicious but the crispy tamarind noodles tasted like a college kid had emptied his bag of ramen noodles, toasted them in the microwave, and served them to us. Barf. My friends said their spring rolls were OK but nothing to write home about. We ordered more drinks.

The waiter disappears into his black hole for another lengthy period of time and when he returns he has our entrees. Another server circulates the table with an ornate pot of steamed white rice and serves everyone alongside their entrees. I find this incredibly amusing and fantastic but I guess I was a few martinis in at that point. In terms of the actual food, everything was decent but not great. The sirloin steak with eggplant was so spicy with curry that our mouths were on fire and it was difficult to taste anything thereafter. The chicken and shrimp with cashew nuts was relatively bland and I had to use some soy sauce from the sushi platter to zest it up. As stated above, the food was never assumed to be the spotlight of the meal but our dishes were simple and tough to mess up, in my opinion. Somehow they managed to.

When it was all said and done and at 50 bucks a head, Planet Thailand 212 is not worth it. We could have enjoyed a pleasant meal at a different trendy-Thai outpost such as Peep or Cafetasia for half the cost, double the flavor, and a waiter who existed.

Planet Thailand 212: 30 West 24th Street (betw 5th and 6th ave)
Cuisine: Thai and Sushi
Average App/Entree Price: $10/$14
Food: Good
Service: Poor
Value: Good
You Gonna Finish That? Not even worth a doggy bag.