La Miette La Mai Thai Bistro- Northborough, MA

I am currently traveling for work, which has led me to the Boston area. I landed on Tuesday and I'm departing tomorrow (Friday). I am traveling with my Resident Dining Executive Chef from work due to some training we were attending for our new brand standards in our resident dining program at work. If I haven't ever mentioned, I work in food service as it is running the dining hall of a local college while also overseeing their marketing for dining on campus.

I have never been to the Boston area, so I immediately reached out to Rose, per Dana's suggestion, to get some ideas as her partner lives in the area and I knew she would have some suggestions. This area also has personal meaning as my father is originally from around Boston.

We haven't had a chance to eat out as much as one would think, because we had food served at our training, but we knew we'd hit a few before departing. When our training finished early this afternoon, my co-worker and I immediately began looking at places we could head to. She had already hit up the idea of a local Thai place, because they were also advertising live music tonight. After looking at other selections, I said sure let's go.

Not a disappointment at all.

La Miette La Mai is a Thai fusion restaurant that used to be called Yoong Tong Thai Restaurant. It is located in Northborough, Massachusetts that uses fresh local ingredients in French cooking techniques, styles, and flair with traditional Thai cuisine.

The menu is fairly substantial, which could be off-putting at first and may make one think that the food would not be the greatest quality, but it would seem despite that they put a lot of effort and love into their food.

Since we were traveling for work, no alochol on the company dime, so we had more mocktails than anything. One of their cocktails is called a Lady Violet which I did get without the alcohol. Sadly, their drink menu is not posted online and I didn't think to write down what it was. It was very refreshing and I highly recommend it. My co-worker got a lychee mocktail.

We chose to order items from the specialty menu, which apparently can be a bit tricky because initially the appetizers we wanted were sold out, so we modified. Originally, we had intended on getting their Chao Phraya Basil Mussels and Siam Grilled Mango Shrimps. Since those were sold out, we went with their Thai Tuna Spicy Tartare off the Chef's Specialties menu and their Northboro house makimono roll.

The Thai Tuna Spicy Tartare was yellowfin tuna in a spicy aioli, mixed with avocado dices, shaved scallions, and topped with crispy egg noodles. It normally also comes with brunoise red onions, but as I am sensitive to most onions, they removed it. The Northboro was a salmon and cucumber roll topped with seared salmon, avocado, and spicy mayo. Both were absolutely delicious. The portion sizes are quite large, so both of these dishes could even be good as an entree if someone wanted.

Our entrees from the specialty menu were our first choices and the only ones available from that menu. I ordered the Soft Shell Crab Basil Pad Thai which was a thai noodle dish with basil leaves, peanuts, eggs, bean sprouts, scallions, Thai turnips, and stir fried with a house spicy basil sauce served with a whole crispy tempura soft shell crab.

My co-worker ordered the Grilled Wild Atlantic Salmon Choo Chee. It was a grilled salmon served in a spicy choo chee curry sauce aromatized with kaffir lime leaves and basil leaves, bell peppers, string beans, pineapples, carrots, yellow squash, zucchini, and green peas.

We split both dishes so that we had a chance to try them because both of us were curious about each dish and could not figure out which we wanted to get. Plus being in the food service industry, we wanted to be able to take ideas back to work.

Neither dish was a disappointment. Both flavor profiles were outstanding and what was great to see, especially with the salmon, is that the vegetables were not overcooked or mushy, which I think could easily happen when there are so many offered in a dish. Both fish items were also cooked just right. My co-worker also got a side of rice noodles while I got a side of sticky rice, which just added to the dinner.

Dessert was definitely ordered and we once again ordered with the intent to try the other's so I ordered their creme brulee and my co-worker ordered their mango sticky rice while she also got a Thai iced tea to round it all out. Both desserts were delicious. The mango sticky rice was not overly sweet at all and the mango was a perfect ripeness. The creme brulee was really good with a good crack when you dug in. It was also not overly sweet nor was it bland, which is sometimes the disappoint I've had previously with creme brulee. It was a perfect balance and one of the better ones I've had in a really long time.

Even before the meal was over, I was already messaging Rose to let her know that it was a place that she and Chris needed to try out, along with a few of the pictures I took. Overall, this restaurant was not at all a disappointment. The service was amazing, they were very accommodating- even at the end of the night when it was obviously we were among the last people to leave. We never felt rushed by them to get out despite the fact that we were there past closing. The live music was a delight and very good. All in all, a restaurant I would highly recommend to anyone in the area if they were to visit or even if they live here. We even talked about mentioning to the front desk of our hotel that if anyone asked for outside restaurant recommendations to send customers to them.