Mommy Pai’s, the latest venture from the masterminds behind Thai Diner and the late Uncle Boons, seems to follow this road map—on paper, at least. Open since August, just around the corner from Thai Diner, it’s a chicken-finger joint, takeout only, with a clear culinary point of view (punchy, high-octane Thai flavors) and striking aesthetics. The concept grew out of practical constraints. The restaurant is situated in a tiny storefront that the owners of Thai Diner, the husband-and-wife team Ann Redding and Matt Danzer, have occupied for nearly a decade. Over the years, it’s served variously as an Americana-inflected luncheonette; a spinoff of Uncle Boons; and, most recently, a commissary kitchen for desserts. The space is both narrow and shallow, with comically limited dining-room capacity, and with Mommy Pai’s, Redding and Danzer have landed on a solution both pragmatic and poetic: they got rid of the dining room altogether. Mommy Pai’s is all storefront, with a window for ordering and a door hatch for picking up meals once they’re ready. A wood-framed dining shed set into the street, with a dozen or so stools and a countertop along the perimeter, offers customers something approximating eating in, at least while the weather holds.
What Mommy Pai’s lacks in square footage, though, it makes up for in sheer visual intensity. The façade, designed by Redding’s sister, May Redding, is a riot of textures, details, and in-jokes in the same Thai-meets-rococo style that makes Thai Diner feel so immersive and fun. The storefront features wooden framing, a glass-brick wall, and hammered-metal clouds (smithed by artisans at the Silver Temple in Chiang Mai) shooting off from a gabled decorative rooftop. The menu, displayed on an LCD screen set into the façade, is as mesmerizing as an art installation. As a functional menu, it is slightly less inviting. The lineup of dishes and sauces and combos verges on overwhelming; they’re presented in a mix of typefaces and colors, and punctuated by herky-jerky photo animations—a waving hand holding a soft-serve twist, spidery fingers with brass nail extensions used in the traditional Thai dance Fawn Leb. Mommy Pai herself—Redding’s mother, Ampai Redding, a winning mascot—appears wearing vivid red lipstick, smiling warmly, her head nodding in a perpetual gesture of invitation.
I’m not entirely sure that I succeeded in optimizing the various combo-meal options, but, as at Thai Diner, the chaos is part of the fun. If you find yourself lost, there are marginally less confusing paper menus available near the register. I will try to break down the offerings. The chicken fingers, cut from thigh meat, come either fried or grilled, in a variety of marinades. Eight dipping sauces are available on the side. There are a few sandwiches, including a chicken burger, all served on squishy potato buns. There are also a whole bunch of sides, some of which maybe feel like appetizers, but who ever heard of a fast-casual takeout spot having appetizers, and what’s the difference anyway?
