Ayada Thai

I had papaya salad and tofu pad Thai. It was delicious and the server was very friendly. I wish they would have mango sticky rice during winter season. :(

Its so hard to find a decent & authentic Thai food and Ayada has it all right.
Their pork leg over rice is on point that I would make a trip all the way from Bushwick to Woodside.

I came to Ayada Thai on a Thursday evening to meet up with a friend who happens to be Thai herself and suggested the restaurant. She was running a few minutes late and since it was quite nippy out I asked the server if I could sit in the restaurant as I waited. Initially, not too thrilled with the idea of having me hold up two seats, since it was prime time dinner hour, she asked management if it was okay. Luckily, I was seated at the door while I waited for my friend.
I was hoping to have some tea, but no server approached me until the 15 minute mark I had stated my friend would arrive. Finally, I was served a delightful ginger tea which was perfect for the cold day.
My friend arrived a few minutes later and since I had looked at the menu a million times over, I was ready to order!
We ordered chive dumplings, chicken drunken noodles, and chicken pad khing to share. The orders were ready in my favorite Speedy Gonzalez time which did not take away from the freshness and tasty aspect of the dishes served. The chive dumplings arrived first as our appetizer dish with a dark teriyaki sauce that was great for dipping the crispy doughy triangle chive filled dumplings (reminiscent of chive pancakes) about 6 – 8 triangles for a $ 6 deal!
The chicken pad khing was served with plenty of vegetables which as a veggie lover I was happy to see. There were long hot peppers, carrots, onions, bell peppers, basil leaves and a delicious sauce that was a perfect balance of spicy and tangy and at a great $ 10 deal for the amount of food served. Please note that it is a la carte, hence if you want rice it is $ 1.50 extra, not terrible just that I’m not too wild about white rice anyway so I did not need it. The drunken chicken noodles were very similar to the pad khing in spice and flavors only that it had long thick noodles and the meat seemed to be dark rather than white. Still yum, a $ 9 deal and their raved about specialty! If you love noodles it is a must try!
I enjoyed my experience at Ayada and would love to return to try the alcoholic drinks I was on antibiotics and unable to do so. There were very many fruity and herby drinks available such as the lychee martini and passion fruit mojito that were certainly tantalizing! Til next time!

I came here several times with my friends for lunch. This place is nearby my school so it’s my cafeteria. Never try the lunch because we are serve it for weekdays. For someone who would like to try a single dish of thai food i fo recommend for Yen ta four (noodles) and Khao ka moo (braised leg pork with rice and egg). There’re awesome and authentic thai foods.

My favorite go-​to Thai restaurant in Queens! Cheap and good.
I recommend the Pad Thai, Pad See Ew, Red Curry, Beef BBQ and the Crad Fried Rice. The Crab Fried Rice is made of real crab meat! It’s so good.
It’s not initially spicy so make sure you ask for the spicy chili sauce or ask your server to make your dish spicy. I usually get the Thai Iced Tea as well.
Everything here is good! We come here every 1 – 2 weeks!

This place is an amazing Thai restaurant. The service here is great, the food is good, prices are amazing.
To start off, we had the mango salad. I have never tried this but it was one of the recommendations from NYTimes. And my goodness it was delicious. It had a perfect mix of sweet and tangy and a bit spice in my opinion. The seafood in the salad was a perfect blend.
We also ordered calamari. The calamari tasted fresh and crunch instead of soggy and oily. The pieces were big too and perfectly fried.
As an entrée, I ordered pad see ew. They have a pretty filling portion and I ended up taking half to go. I usually like my food spicy but unfortunately this didn’t come with an option to be mild, medium or hot so I put a ton of spicy sauce on it.
Unilocalers were saying how their Thai iced tea is good and it really is! They serve it in a mason jar type of thing so it tastes as pretty as it looks. For a big serving, it was only $ 3!
One thing that was outstanding of their service was when my s. o ordered drunken noodles (medium) but it was soo spicy for him that he couldn’t enjoy the food. He asked if there was a way to make it less spicy and the server was so kind to make a fresh new one for him!
I would definitely come back here again. The servers were all great and the prices are so affordable!!! Only bad thing is that the parking issue is kind of hard but luckily a car left as soon as we got there:)

I love how this neighborhood is turning into a little Thailand!
According to some Unilocal reviews that I read, I went and tried the raw shrimp dish. Not. A. Fan. Too raw for my taste. And the garlic didn’t help. Sorry Ayada, I wish I liked it.
Crispy Watercress Salad was good but it was a bit too oily and not crispy enough. My fave Crispy Watercress Salad is from Plant Love House. MMM.
Other than that, everything else was very good here, especially the Duck Panang and the Kang Som Sour Curry. I saw a couple of tables that ordered a soft shell crab mango salad dish that I would love to try one day. Will definitely be back! Go Elmhurst!

Really good Thai food place away from the city. I usually dine in once a week or so. Street parking is always available. The food is always great, never been disappointed. The restaurant is small and it can get crowded sometimes, usually on the weekend. So far this is one of my favorite Thai food place.

It’s a small, tucked away place but the food is arguably the best Thai in Elmhurst.
I’ve gone to SriPraPhai and Chao Thai, the other Thai food legends of the area, and Ayada uses the freshest ingredients and the least amount of excess oil without sacrificing flavor.
Their seafood is amazing, especially the shrimp which is always tender and cooked just right. What I am telling you is that you won’t go wrong by ordering a shrimp dish here. Although, I will warn you, the raw shrimp with chili is extremely spicy and perfect for those who don’t mind having burning lips in exchange for a delicious bite.
A few other dishes I recommend: mango salad with seafood, any panang curry, pad thai (yep that’s right), homemade thai sausages, and the BBQ pork.
The only con is that there are few dessert selections but definitely polish off your meal with mango sticky rice if available!

We ordered 3 Menus, 2 sticky rice with Thai Singha beer (Heineken not available at that time)
Bad taste Tom yum Gong ever. Look like they just diluted the readymade tomyum paste and added mushrooms and shrimp. Mushrooms not cooked. No lemongrass nor galangal.
For pork salad (lub Muu) the taste is ok except fried rice powder are not that smooth and I can sense hard rice grains in my mouth.
Pork neck grill is perfect with its sauce.
Service is ok with its level.

Rounding out the holy trinity of Queens Thai food with SriPraPaiThai and Chao Thai, this place makes some amazing food.
The raw shrimp salad is very good but quite spicy
The duck Panang curry was wonderful, with a large portion of succulent duck swimming in a delicious curry
The drunken noodle was excellent l. I strongly suggest getting it with the crispy pork, which has a wonderful crunchy texture.
Medium spicy was tolerable but still flavorful for a white man who is not actually ready for Thai spicy

I thought the food was amazing and I have already been to SriPraPhai, but wanted a change! This place was delicious! We ordered the lard, sausage, Chinese broccoli with crispy pork and crab fried rice. All hands down delicious! They also have high chairs so the place totally kid friendly.
If you want their fried bananas — order then early. We got there around 12:30 and finished our meal then asked about the fried bananas — all gone!

Rude pick up service:
Had my husband pick up an order from there: apparently they try to contact me that they didn’t have a certain noodle I ordered but I couldn’t be reach.
Sent the husband to pick up the food, the hostess asked him «you don’t know how to pick up your phone??» (In a rude tone)
Another older lady (who maybe the manager (nicer)) went up to him to explained to him that they try to contact him but being that he was not about to be reach, they changed the noodles…
It was totally fine if they had to change the noodles even if they can’t contact me to confirm, I understand these things happen. However, it is not fine that their hostess made a rude «confrontation» to my husband, For all she knows, I could be busy and can’t pick up my phone. Very unprofessional, amateur.
I was so upset hearing about this that I called right away and asked to speak to the manager and told her she needs to improve on customer service. She indeed apologized, but I’m still very disappointed… We have been going here since they’ve open and never have we experience bad service when dining in.
——
1. Food is always up to par, still the best Thai restaurant my husband and I’ve been to. (4.5 stars)
2. Dining in service is good.
3. Hostess’ service is s*!T
4. Don’t order pick up…

I will say nothing about SriPraPhai, but Ayada becomes my favorite Thai food in NYC. Yes, not only in Queens.
I don’t really like fried rice but I highly recommend CRAB MEAT FRIED RICE. So yummmm. PENANG CURRY with DUCK is a must have and so is DRUNKEN NOODLE and THAI ICED TEA.
Nice price, great service, fast delivery, okay street parking, what can I say!

Great lunch specials $ 6.50 for most lunch specials and comes with choice of eggroll and salad or soup (Tom Yum). Soup is great because it has lots of mushrooms and chicken.
The noodles have an authentic taste to it and isnt very oily as those of other places.
I see why people enjoy this place.
I had the seafood papaya salad as well. I like the sauce and the salad, but for $ 10, its a big much for the portion. It only had about 4 squid pieces, 4 mussels, and two shrimps.
The resturant only houses about 20 people… maybe lke 10 tables. Very small and could get very crowded.
Def would come again!

Came here with friends for lunch after classes! Ayada is located in a desolate part of Elmhurst but it is within walking distance of several train stations. With the large number of reviews and the popularity of this place, I was surprised that this place is so small. It can probably only accommodate at most 20 diners at a time. Service was very attentive and friendly and everything seemed very clean.
Thai iced tea– So tasty! I think it’s one of the best I’ve had! :)
Tom yum soup– I never get tom yum soup from Thai places but this came with the lunch special so I gave it a try. It was really good! It’s perfect for people who like spicy and sour soups but the flavor might be a bit too much for those who don’t. There were also mushrooms and pieces of chicken that absorbed all of the intense flavors of the soup.
Fried spring roll– I found it lame that they only give one spring roll per lunch special. Nonetheless, it tasted pretty good and came with a delicious dipping sauce.
Chicken pad see ew– It tasted very standard but that’s good enough for me. It tasted very legit and wasn’t excessively oily. It also wasn’t excessively sweet which was good as well. Overall, great flavors!
Red snapper with mango salad– Definitely had to be the highlight! There were so many bits and pieces of crunchy fried fish that just left me wanting more! While the fish might be a bit on the dry side, it comes with a sauce that, when drizzled on top of the fish, makes it moist and delicious. The mango salad on top was not my cup of tea because, even though I’m a huge fan of sour food, it was just way too sour for me. It’s a little pricy but the portion is reasonable and it tastes great!
Honestly, I’ve recently been really turned off by Thai restaurants because of the lack of quality and ridiculously small portions. However, I really enjoyed my meal at Ayada today! The flavors of the food were all on point, the portions are reasonable, and the service was excellent. Definitely ranks as one of the best Thai places in my books!

Ayada, I am obsessed. I come here at least once every two weeks and think this is the best thai restaurant in all of NYC. That’s a big statement but the food is absolutely phenomenal, deserving of that title.
Definite must gets:
1) Papaya salad– large serving of freshly shaven papaya with lime, fish sauce and peanuts. It’s so refreshing!
2) Penang curry with chicken– I tried this with both beef and duck. Chicken wins.
3) Crispy watercress salad– Fried watercress drowned in seafood yumminess. You can’t go wrong but definitely need to eat this on the spot.
The staff is so sweet and the food never disappoints. The only thing is that word has spread and people are lining up to eat here. Make sure to come early to get a seat

This is definitely the best Thai food in Queens! I feel a little bit guilty writing that since I live on top of a Thai restaurant, but seriously — Ayada is amazing.
If you go, be sure to order one of their special fish! We had the fried whole fish (cut up neatly so you can feast without worrying about bones), pad thai, and Thai fried rice. We were worried that it was so much food (big portions FTW) that we couldn’t finish it, but it was all so delicious that we ate every last bite.
It was one of my friends’ first times eating Thai food and now they have some high expectations. The flavors were on point, everything had a pleasant zing to it spicy-​wise, and the service was great. The best thing to do after this giant meal? Go across the street to get some shaved ice at the dessert place. What a perfect little corner of Elmhurst!

Worth the schlep to Elmhurst.
When folks talk about «the best Thai in Queens», they’re usually thinking about another spot. I’m here to set the record straight: Ayada’s the best Thai I’ve had in the neighborhood, and then some.
Start with their BBQ pork appetizer, served with a tangy Jaew sauce ($ 10; credit accepted). Its tender meat melts in your mouth. Get the pad kee mao — who doesn’t like noodles that are drunk?[1] — and ask for a fried egg (just a few bucks extra). Further honorable mentions include their curry duck and papaya salad.
Come with friends, order a ton, and dine family style[2]. Last I was here with a large group, their staff handled us with ease during the chaos of dinner hour.
Ayada’s open till 11pm most nights[3].
[1] They’ve got a bar. And you can get shots. Just don’t go overboard.
[2] Mind how many people you bring. This isn’t the biggest place, and I hear they’re capping party sizes now. Though if you’ve got room, message me an invite?
[3] Check hours before going. Still hungry after eating and it’s late? There’s at least one Thai bar nearby open even later…

We had the som tum, moo manow, and fried whole fish. The som tum was spicy like what I had when I lived in Bangkok. The taste was amazing and my palette was in trouble since my spicy days are in the rear view mirror. The moo manow was grilled perfectly, but did not have the sour, garlicky flavor I remembered from eating 1000s of these in Thailand. Good, just not as I remembered. The whole fish was superb, as was the whole experience.
Yummy.