The Best Thai Food in Ann Arbor

Ann Arbor has more Korean restaurants than most college towns have any right to claim. The Indian options run deep. Japanese food is well covered between Tomukun, Slurping Turtle, and a handful of sushi spots. But Thai food? The scene is thin. Two restaurants anchor it, and after that you are looking at pan-Asian menus where a pad thai shares space with sushi rolls and pho.

That gap is real, and pretending otherwise would be dishonest. A city with 125,000 residents and a major university should have more Thai options. What it does have, though, is worth knowing. No Thai! on North Fourth Avenue and Pacific Rim on West Liberty are both doing work that holds up to scrutiny, even if neither is a dedicated Thai restaurant in the way that Ann Arbor's Korean or Indian spots are dedicated to their cuisines.

If you want serious, traditional Thai cooking in southeast Michigan, Takoi in Detroit's Corktown neighborhood is the restaurant that belongs in the conversation. Brad Greenhill's Thai-inspired menu, with Michigan sourcing and a cocktail program that complements the food, is 45 minutes east on I-94.^{1See our Takoi profile for a full review of Brad Greenhill's Thai-inspired cooking in Detroit.} For Ann Arbor proper, here is what exists.

No Thai! (226 N Fourth Ave, Ann Arbor)

The name is a joke that has survived long enough to become the restaurant's identity. No Thai! sits on North Fourth Avenue, a block north of Kerrytown, in a space small enough that the line sometimes spills onto the sidewalk during lunch.

The menu is built around the dishes that form the backbone of American Thai restaurant cooking: pad thai, curries in red and green and yellow, basil stir-fry, fried rice. What separates No Thai! from the generic version of this menu is execution. The pad thai has proper tamarind sweetness without becoming candy. Rice noodles hold their texture instead of turning to paste. Peanuts are toasted. Lime wedges arrive on the plate, which seems like a small detail until you eat pad thai somewhere that forgot them.

Green curry is the dish I order most. Coconut milk with enough chili paste to register as spicy rather than creamy, loaded with vegetables and your choice of protein. Chicken thigh is the right call here. The curry comes with jasmine rice that absorbs the sauce without disintegrating. At $11 to $13 per entree, No Thai! is one of the better lunch values downtown.

The spice level is adjustable, and the kitchen will honor your request. "Thai hot" means something here. If you ask for it, believe them. On a cold Tuesday in January, a bowl of tom kha gai (coconut galangal soup) with the spice turned up is the kind of lunch that recalibrates the rest of your afternoon.

Portions are generous for the price. Two people can eat well for under $30. The room seats maybe twenty-five. At peak lunch, expect a wait. Takeout is efficient. No Thai! is not trying to redefine Thai food. It is trying to make the standards well and sell them at prices that match a downtown block shared with students and Kerrytown shoppers. On both counts, it succeeds.

Pacific Rim (114 W Liberty St, Ann Arbor)

Pacific Rim is a pan-Asian restaurant, not a Thai restaurant. The menu covers Japanese, Chinese, Vietnamese, Thai, and Korean dishes across a range wide enough that calling it a Thai guide entry requires an asterisk. But the Thai dishes on Pacific Rim's menu are some of the better ones available in Ann Arbor, and ignoring them because the restaurant also serves sushi would be a disservice.

The location on West Liberty, just west of Main Street, puts Pacific Rim in the heart of downtown. The space is larger than No Thai! and more suited to a sit-down dinner. Lunch and dinner service both run, and the menu is the same expansive document at both.

Pad see ew, the wide rice noodle stir-fry with Chinese broccoli and dark soy, is the Thai dish that shows Pacific Rim's range. The noodles are wok-fired with enough heat that the edges char slightly, and the sauce coats without pooling. Drunken noodles (pad kee mao) with basil are another strong option, and the Thai basil tastes fresh rather than wilted. Red curry with chicken or shrimp has the coconut richness and chili backbone that the dish requires. Entrees run $14 to $20.

The advantage of Pacific Rim for Thai food is the kitchen's ability to execute across multiple cuisines without losing coherence in any single one. The disadvantage is that a pan-Asian restaurant will never replace a restaurant devoted entirely to Thai cooking. The curry paste is good. It is probably not made in-house. The noodle dishes are well-executed. They do not have the depth of a kitchen that makes nothing else.

Still, when you want pad see ew at 7 p.m. on a Wednesday in Ann Arbor, Pacific Rim will take care of you. The room is comfortable, the prices are fair, and the food is honest about what it is.

The Gap

Two restaurants. That is the Thai food guide for a city this size. For comparison, our Korean food guide covers five restaurants and could add more. Indian food could fill a longer list. Thai remains underrepresented.

The reasons are not mysterious. Thai restaurants require specific ingredients, many of them perishable, and the supply chains that serve larger Thai communities in places like Chicago or Los Angeles do not extend as reliably to a mid-sized Michigan college town. Opening any restaurant is hard. Opening one that depends on fresh galangal, kaffir lime leaves, and green papaya in a market where those ingredients require extra sourcing effort is harder.

If someone opens a dedicated Thai restaurant in Ann Arbor with a menu that goes beyond the pad-thai-and-curry basics, this guide will get longer. Until then, No Thai! handles the affordable lunch, Pacific Rim handles the sit-down dinner, and Takoi in Detroit handles the question of what serious Thai-inspired cooking can look like when someone builds a whole restaurant around it.

The green curry at No Thai!, chili heat rising through the coconut, chicken tender and falling apart, rice soaking it up. For $12, that is a good lunch. For Ann Arbor's Thai scene, it is also the standard.

No Thai! is at 226 N Fourth Ave, Ann Arbor. Cash and card. Pacific Rim is at 114 W Liberty St, Ann Arbor. Both serve lunch and dinner. For Thai food worth a longer drive, see our Takoi profile in Corktown, Detroit.