Restaurant: Maison Phayathai
Event: Maison Phayathai’s Thai Select Award Celebration Dinner
Restaurant type: Thai
Prices: $6.95-$12.95 entrées, $7.95-$24.95 mains
Date: Wednesday April 24th 2019
Table of: 6
My favorite dishes: Thai fish cakes + Phayathai special seafood soup

Last week, I had the pleasure of trying out Maison Phayathai as their guest, whilst celebrating their reception of the Thai Select Award! The Thai Select Award is awarded to a select few Thai restaurants across the country, serving authentic and traditional Thai dishes. Maison Phayathai, who has been around since 1987, finally received this award last week!

Maison Phayathai is an authentic and higher end Thai restaurant, located on Guy Street in the heart of downtown Montreal (very close by the JMSB building). You’ll find fan favorites like pad Thai and tom yum soup, while also having the opportunity to explore Thailand’s vast cuisine with lesser known dishes involving various types of curries, coconut milk, Thai basil, sweet chilies and more. At the event, we even got a cooking demo from Chef-owner Ving Nguyen, who prepared his famous papaya salad for us!

Being invited for Maison Phayathai’s Thai Select Award Celebration Dinner, we were treated to a wonderful and flavorful menu, devised by Chef-owner Vinh Nguyen:

• Papaya salad
• Phayathai special seafood soup: seafood in a home chili and lemongrass broth with pineapple
• Authentic Thai duck salad: minced duck breast with red onions, roasted rice, coriander and mint salad
• Thai fish cakes with spicy cucumber salad
• Shrimp rolls: Thai tiger shrimps wrapped in a crispy roll and served with a sweet and spicy sauce
• Authentic pork basil: minced pork sautéed with Thai basil and bell peppers in a spicy paprika sauce
• Spicy crispy tilapia: fried tilapia with Thai basil and bell peppers in a spicy tamarind sauce
• Thai riceberry
• Mango coconut riceberry

Overall, we enjoyed an excellent meal and in great company too! It was great getting to taste all of these new and different Thai dishes I had never had before and getting explanations from the chef for each dish. The two highlights for me were definitely the Phayathai special seafood soup and the Thai fish cakes. The soup was absolutely stunning; overflowing full of seafood and bursting in different flavors, with a touch of heat. I really wanted to eat it all, but knew that I had to keep some room for the other courses to come!! Speaking of other courses, the Thai fish cakes were a nice surprise addition to the menu and I loved them. They reminded me a lot of cod cakes (accras de morue) that I’ve had at a couple other places in Montreal. The spicy cucumber salad that accompanied them was a perfect way to freshen the dish up.

I also really enjoyed the two main dishes: the Authentic pork basil and the Spicy crispy tilapia. The pork dish tasted very nice and I loved the sauce; I would however have preferred a different cut of meat, like sliced pork versus minced pork. The spicy crispy tilapia was also very good; the fish was nice and crispy on the outside and still moist on the inside. I’m just not a huge fan of the whole sweet-chill combination, so that’s why this wasn’t a favorite for me, but the dish was very well done and properly balanced.

We were also given some Thai riceberry, which has a nice dark purple shade and is said to be much better and healthier than its white counterparts. I for one had already had this rice at Pamika last year and I have to say, its like eating brown bread versus white bread lol. Being super used to the texture and taste of white rice, I’d have to say riceberry is not really my cup of tea, unless drenched in sauce.

A big thank you to Yui, Maison Phayathai, Thai Select Award, Thai Insider Canada and @nad_eat for inviting me and allowing me to experience Maison Phayathai! If you are looking for a great Thai restaurant in the downtown area, Maison Phayathai is a must!

UP NEXT: Mon billet sur le Gyro Boutique (Délicieuse chaîne de mets grecques rapides!)

*This restaurant post does not contain my usual restaurant review criteria of restaurants, as this is a sponsored post where I was invited to the restaurant as a guest.

*All photos and comments are mine