Another Thai restaurant has popped up on Julu Lu, joining the legion that pepper Shanghai’s gastronomic landscape. Herbs makes an immediate impression, from an exterior that’s styled to look like a traditional stilt house all the way to its cozy interiors that are replete with warmly shaded fabrics and lotus-motif wood paneling. The sight of one of the owners bustling about lending a hand at dinner service also manages to add that extra degree of warmth.

For a locally owned Thai restaurant, they do a commendable job. The tom yum shrimp soup (RMB108) tastes like they’d packed the flavor of a hundred shrimp heads into the generously sized vessel it comes in. It’s one of the best versions we’ve tasted outside of Thailand. Packed with those distinctive tiny eggplants and a good amount of chicken, the green curry (RMB78) doesn’t pull any punches either. While it’s not tear-jerkingly spicy the way a real native dish is, it had us reaching for our Thai milk tea (RMB35) quite a bit to help put out the delicious burn.

One dish did have us scratching our heads though. We eagerly awaited the drunken noodles with beef (RMB78), as pad kee mao is one of our favorite staples, but what arrived was unlike any version we’ve ever tried. Consisting of some authentic details like holy basil and sprigs of peppercorn married strangely with thin noodles (the dish always features broad rice noodles) and some very Chinese flavor profiles, we imagine that this dish is what would result if pad kee mao and chao mian had a love child. It surprised us that a Thai restaurant would get something as standard as pad kee mao so wrong. You can’t win them all, we guess. But no matter, Herbs manages to win plenty.

Our rating: 3.5/5

DETAILS

What: Herbs

Where: 1/F, 768 Julu Lu 巨鹿路768号1楼

Tel: 6208-5357

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