This entry goes out to my best friend Aarti. This is a reminder for her (and anyone) to never go back to Betel again. Aarti and I were both in the mood for some Thai food and when we came across Betel Aarti's first comment was "Wait, I've been there before but I can't remember if I liked it or not". Instead of racking our brains for 30 minutes trying we decided to just bite the bullet and give it a try.
Now for those of you who know me know that I am usually a bit weary of fancy Asian places that are not run by people of that ethnicity (obviously there are always exceptions to the rule). But Betel is a prime example of why I stay away from places like this. My first impression of this place was that it was wildly overpriced and expensive for what it was, but hey, I live in New York and I'm willing to try to be more open minded about things, right? The menu here is more high end, fusion Asian rather than straight up Thai food. Aarti and I split the spiced corn fritters ($12) and the pomelo asparagus and cashew salad ($10) while I got the stir fried striped bass ($25) and Aarti got the braised tofu ($21). If we had stopped our meal at just the appetizers, I probably would have given this place 3 forks. The spiced corn fritters were nice and crispy and served with shiso leaves and a tangy soy dipping sauce. The pomelo salad was a nice refreshing salad that I hadn't seen anywhere and I was pleased with the citrus mixed with the chili jam dressing. However, my one HUGE complaint about this dish was that there were 2 of the world's smallest and skinniest pieces of asparagus I've ever seen in my life. I mean, the pieces of cashews were bigger than them. It's ok if it's not asparagus season and if they're hard to find but then don't call it an asparagus salad for christ sakes. It's incredibly disappointing to expect something called an asparagus salad only to find no asparagus in it. Boo.
As for my striped bass dish, the actual fish itself was quite tasty with a nice crispy skin and moist and tender meat on the inside. But the rest of the dish was a hot mess. The presentation was quite unappealing with a lot of sloppy and oily sauce splattered all over it which made it super hard to find an actual piece of fish in the dish. The dish would have been so much better had it been served with just one or two spoonfuls of sauce on it. That would have made it more elegant in presentation and in taste. Meanwhile Aarti had mentioned that her tofu dish was totally uninspiring and tasted like something you could get at a strip mall in the suburbs. For $21, you would expect the tofu to be cooked with more love than that. We also both agreed that all the dishes seemed to have a very heavy taste of tamarind. Now I know that they use it a lot in Thai food but to taste it in everything we ate was a bit too much for us. But what was perhaps the most disappointing part of the entire meal was when we got the bill. It wasn't the price of the dishes that shocked me (I mean I did read the menu before hand afterall) but they actually charged us $2 for the side of hot sauce Aarti had asked for. I mean who the hell charges when you ask for a condiment for your dish?! On top of it, the size of the side of hot sauce was about as big as my pinky and Aarti mentioned that it tasted more like vinegar rather than a spicy hot sauce. Most mom and pop Asian places usually give you a nice array of hot sauces for you for FREE. The only reason I didn't give this place a goose egg was because the corn fritters were decent and I did think the pomelo salad was very unique. Total bill: $42/pp with tax and tip.
Photo Credit: Yelp
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