Laut 15 E 17th St, (between 5th Ave & W Union Sq),
New York,
NY 10003
I went to Laut years and years ago and always kind of had it in my mind as a good go to SE Asian place, but somehow never returned until last weekend. Laut is one of the few places in the city that serves Malaysian and Indonesian food (in addition to some standard Thai dishes). Having been to Bali recently I felt tempted to order a Mee Goreng or Nasi Goreng. But after remembering that I had eaten those two dishes for 2 weeks straight not too long ago, I decided to stick with a simple Thai style noodle dish. Laut has tons of noodle options: thin noodles, wide noodles, glass noodles, and egg noodles, but I settled for my usual wide flat noodle dish. I got the Char Kueh Teow with chicken ($13) which is essentially a flat broad noodles with chives, bean sprouts, eggs and soy sauce with home made chili sauce. In reality, most of the noodle dishes on the menu sound very similar except that there are one or two different ingredients. For an appetizer, the group split the small bites combo ($13) which came with the shrimp puff, veggie spring roll and dumpling fritters. You could really just call it a plate of fried food. In all honesty, they all kind of tasted and looked the same except that one had shrimp, one had veggies and another had chicken in it. After eating all that fried food, I kind of wished we ordered something "healthier" like steamed dumplings or the rice crepe.
Similar to most Thai places, the noodles came out pretty quickly afterwards and it was your good standard noodle fare. It hit the spot in the right place but I wouldn't say that it was a wow dish that I would urge you to try immediately. It's just a good standard staple dish, that's it. Apparently this place has a Michelin star, which kind of boggles my mind because I would have never seen here. I'm not saying it bad at all, but Michelin rated?! Maybe I need to come back and try a lot more dishes. There are a lot of other entrees and options that you don't see in a Thai/SE Asian places, so I would encourage anyone who comes here to perhaps not order a pad thai or like me a basic wide noodle dish (unless that's what you really want) and try a different type of SE Asian dish. It's in a convenient location, so if you ever do find yourself in Union Square and need a quick/simple Asian rush, Laut is a good choice. Total bill: $19/pp with tax and tip.
Photo Credit: Yelp
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