Boonsong Thai Cuisine - Bloomfield, NJ

We were driving around last weekend, trying to find a new restaurant to checkout for dinner. We came upon this small stretch of shops along Broad St in Bloomfield and we noticed that it was mainly eateries. In that small section alone, there was a Greek, Japanese, Thai, Italian, Chinese as well as a few American restaurants and bakeries. After driving around for quite some time, trying to find a parking spot (there are only limited street side parking available),we finally parked a couple of streets away, in a residential area. We walked down the street a little and decided to check out the cozy looking Thai restaurant (the Greek restaurant looked good too though!).

The restaurant looked pretty empty for a Saturday night but we noticed that most of the servers were Thai. That's a good sign that the food might be authentic, right? *fingers crossed* Our server was really polite and pleasant, and for a moment, we felt as though we were in a restaurant in Phuket or Bangkok :P After being seated, Kevin ordered the Thai Iced Milk Tea (which by the way was really good) before we checked out their menu. The menu was rather basic, with all the 'usual' Thai dishes. However, I was pretty impressed that they had a rather large vegetarian section in their menu. So, vegetarians out there, please take note. You have to go check this place out!

After looking through the menu, we decided to order our food 'family style'. This means everything is served at once and is placed in the middle of the table, so that it we could share them. How can we go to a Thai restaurant and not order Tom Yum, right? So, we tried a small serving of Shrimp Tom Yum Soup ($4.00). When they asked us how spicy we would like it to be, we said very mild. I think that was a mistake, cos the soup wasn't spicy at all. In fact, it was rather tasteless. As you can see from the photo, there also wasn't many shrimps in the soup. Rather disappointing.

We also tried the Tod Mum Pla ($6.95). That's the traditional fried Thai fishcakes that has been spiced with Thai curry, string beans and kaffir lime leaves. The fishcakes were served with a side of sweet peanut sauce. Now, this was really really good! It tasted like the ones we tried when we were visiting Bangkok a couple of years ago, so yeah, very very authentic! I will definitely order this again.

There were also a whole bunch of different Thai curries to choose from. We finally decided to order the Gang Ped Yang ($14.95). Generous amounts of boneless roasted duck, cooked in red curry and coconut milk with large chunks of pineapple, tomato and chilies. Another home run! The curry wasn't too spicy, very creamy and had just the right amount of heat. I must say that this was my favorite dish of the night!

As a filler, we ordered the Pineapple Fried Rice ($9.95). I must admit that I was initially rather disappointed that the pineapple fried rice wasn't being served in a pineapple boat but I think the taste made up for it! Fluffy jasmine rice stir fried with jumbo shrimp, pineapple chunks, onions, scallions, green peas and cashew nuts. Mmmm mmmm mmmm, very very yummy too! Overall, I think that we had a pretty good dinner. Parking was a problem and it was a little bit pricier than other Thai restaurants in the area but I feel that the awesome service and authentic tasting food made up for it. Boonsong Thai Cuisine is definitely a hidden neighborhood gem!

Boonsong Thai Cuisine - Bloomfield, NJ
1040 Broad St.
Bloomfield, NJ 07003
Tel: (973)338 0507
Web: http://boonsongthaicuisine.com