Reserve

The chili sauce for the spring rolls was excellent. Pad kee mao was yummy — it could have used a little more thai basil, but for the price, was great.
Got take out and they were fast.

This place was hard to spot on the street but I’m glad we tried it on a whim!
Amazing beef pad see yiew and red wine sangria. The pineapple fried rice was great but the shrimp wasn’t that flavorful in it. The crab cake tapa was tasty, the calamari was not that crispy, very rubbery.
I can’t wait to come back and try some curries, fried ice cream, tapas, and salads!

Reserve is a Thai tapas and wine bar – interesting enough combination for my friend and I to try out, especially in the foodie desert that is Murray Hill. However, it was not good enough to warrant a re-​visit.
The deal breaker was the Kuay Tiew Luy Suan (wide flat noodle dish on the tapas menu) which came with no warning on the hidden spiciness. I say «hidden» because the dish itself is bland looking, and the description only includes the last bit about «spicy garlic lime sauce». I expect Thai food to be spicy but this was just a painful, insane level of spiciness. The dish itself is not spicy overall (it has tons of fish sauce, so be warned if you are not a fan), but random parts of it contain traces of mind-​blowingly hot peppers that one does not notice unless you really dig for it. I can handle spicy and hot, but trying to get rid of the burning sensation on my lips, tongue, and throat went beyond «spicy and hot». It was torture, and the burning and pain only subsided when I practically inhaled a glass of Thai Iced Tea w/​milk and then scraped my tongue with a rough paper towel.
I am not criticizing the dish itself, but the lack of warning on the menu. Lots of other restaurants would indicate the spicy level on the menu itself or the staff would offer up that information upon ordering. Perhaps I should have asked myself, but I’ve never experienced any problems with Thai (or other cuisines that served spicy food) so I did not think to ask.
This place really deserves 2.5 stars but I decided to downgrade to a 2 because of service – the staff is not fluent in English (maybe in a traditional Thai restaurant, this can fly, but this was obviously catered to a Western clientele, so what’s up with the lack of language proficiency? I can understand accents of all types fairly well, but the staff did not seem to comprehend simple questions) and they are quite slow on their feet despite it being a slow night.
No thank you Reserve, I’ll be hopping on the 7 to SriPraPhai for a comprehensive menu, solid food, and better service.

Review is for take out only
Fast service
Decent prices
Good happy hour
Friendly staff
However, small portions and not that flavorful especially relative to other options in the area. If you’re ordering takeout, I suggest ThaiNY for more authentic flavor, bigger portions for a better pricepoint. If you’re eating in, Reserve is a great option as they have great drink specials

Lunch Special
This was by my job so it’s an easy and fast take out option. When I stopped to pick up, the restaurant was completely empty but it definitely looked cute inside.
The food was decent. Pad see ew was passable for the price. Not the best but definitely not the worst. Spring roll was actually good, it didn’t have that frozen taste most spring rolls have.
I’d definitely order from here again.

The fusion of a Thai restaurant and a wine bar seems somewhat strange and difficult to pull off well. I’ve been meaning to check this place out as I live nearby.
Came here with a couple friends for their happy hour which lasts till 9PM. 30% off their bottles of wine and half off other drinks. This deal is average. Nothing really to write home about. Their wine selection isn’t extensive but it’s not negligible either. We ordered a few appetizers to share, the best of which was the green curry pizza and this garlic pork dish with a very ethnic name I have since forgotten. The wine was alright but I wouldn’t say it was anything incredibly special. I like that their happy hour lasts till 9 but that’s really about it. For this reason alone, I would probably come back.

Okay Thai food but nothing spectacular. Pad thai was pretty good, my girlfriend thought their Tom Yum soup was way too sweet, not enough savory.
They have a nice half off all wines during happy hour and get a free small select tapa deal. Nice and cheap. Gyozas tasted like they were frozen though.
Service — they got the job done, no major complaints.

Well, it’s hard enough to find this place on Unilocal,given that ‘reserve’ is quite a popular word to employ when it comes to restaurants. However, it’s just a couple blocks over from me on 3^rd Avenue, and while I’ve walked by it many times, I didn’t stop by until this weekend with my fiancée, who had a hankering for Thai food and wanted some for lunch. It was pretty much empty save for a few other occupied tables at noontime on Saturday, so getting seated and having our food served was pretty straightforward — the only real hiccup being that we had to signal to our waiter when we wanted the check, even after we were clearly done with our food and drinks. It’s got a bit of colorful décor on the walls, mainly due to the various specials on drinks being advertised.
As for the food — first, the price for the brunch specials are very solid. Pretty much everything is in the $ 10 range, and you aren’t going to walk out feeling like you got shortchanged, as you also get a side and soup as well. Both the spring rolls and crab were passable, if not spectacular — but they certainly tasted better than your average generic sides. The soup was good; although I wish it was slightly larger, it had a nice spice to it (thanks to the peppers), along with a couple pieces of chicken. I ended up going for the beef curry for the main course, which was quite good — the curry sauce itself wasn’t as soupy as I’ve had at other Thai places, and the sauce itself wasn’t overly hot, and had a nice coconut undertone that helped balance off the flavor of the beef. My fiancée had the roast duck over rice. While I’ve had better duck, it’s pretty solid for a casual sit-​down place, and you still got a good amount of the smoky flavor of the bird coming out.
Combined with a $ 3 (half off bottles) Bluepoint, lunch overall was a success at Reserve. I’d like to come back sometime during their standard hours and maybe try out a bottle of wine, but at least their brunch is an extremely solid value for solidly above-​average Thai food. I’ll definitely plan on coming back now that I’ve tried it out.

Walked into this place around 8 on a weeknight and it was packed with women. Seriously. There were zero men in there. I added to this by walking In with two other women. Any ideas why? Not that I minded.
We had an appetizer and three entrees, all excellent. I got the duck and rice. It seems like a simple dish was it was beautifully seasoned and perfection!
We also got their specialty cocktails, also yummy. I got the tamarind margarita, so gooood! Wish this place was closer to work – I’d be visiting a lot more frequently!

Definitely my new easy-​to-​go spot. Can’t go wrong a the 50% off happy hour drinks before 8pm — and the food is delish and very affordable. An app, two entrees, and two drinks cost is ~50 excl. tip.
The pad see ew was super good — will get again. The roast duck that my friend got was ok.

Happy hour from 4−8pm daily and most drinks are 50% off. The only thing I DO NOT recommend is their Sangria. It’s pretty bad and I’ve had Sangria in a lot of places from Barcelona to NY to LA. Ok, maybe that’s not that many places. But, I’ve even had a Sangria pitcher totaling $ 80, outrageous right?!!
However, this Sangria was only $ 5 for a glass but it was not good.
The food was pretty decent with lots of tapas/​appetizers ranging from $ 5-​$ 8. I also do not recommend the cream cheese dumplings (although the waiter will recommend these to you). I enjoyed the relatively healthy tasting duck wraps, curry puffs, and pad see ewe. They have above average presentation for a Thai restaurant in terms of displaying the dishes. I also love that this is the type of place where it’s quiet enough to have a conversation (maybe not a plus for those wanting to be around a hip happening scene, but my type of place ‘cos it’s tough to find in the city). Service is excellent and very polite waitstaff. I would come back if in the area.

This place would have been awesome… if they had AC! I think they do have some sort of fans or something because it started to get a LITTLE cooler as we were leaving, but it would have been nice if they had turned it on from the beginning… there was also a fly floating around which I know happens in restaurants sometimes, but this fly would not leave our table alone!
They do have a nice happy hour. Half off drinks until 8pm! I wouldn’t say they were the best drinks I’ve ever had, but they were decently strong (although I am a bit of a lightweight). They did taste a little watery, but I started feeling a buzz halfway through so they must have had something in them! Plus at half off, you can just order another.
Prices are very reasonable though the portions aren’t huge. For a group of 3, 5 plates worked out fine. The kuay tiew luy suan is probably the most worth it since you get a decent sized plate of noodles. Warning though it is deceptively spicy! If you want a cheap place with decent drinks/​food you should give it a try, though don’t go on a very hot day!

Warning: They do not have A/​C! We only lasted a little bit over an hour in that place and couldn’t wait to get out!
We went early on Friday night. They have 50% off cocktails for happy hour until 8pm. They sounded good with lots of ingredients, but my $ 5 drink basically reminded me of frat party jungle juice.
Ordered 5 plates for 3 people: green curry pizza (good, generous toppings, didn’t taste a thing like curry…), crab croquettes (good but may as well have been all cream cheese as far as I could tell), gratong tong (tiny tarts filled with corn and maybe some other things, but mostly corn… which I liked), kuay tiew luy suan (flat rice noodles with some very, very spicy minced chicken on top), and the curry puff. Prices were very reasonable and we were satisfied with that amount of food.

Awesome happy hour drink specials!
We stopped by here on a whim before going to dinner a block down at Bistango. We read the happy hour drink specials and it almost seemed too good of a deal to be true — especially since we live in Boston where there are no happy hour specials due to blue laws.
The waiter and bartender were very nice even though we were only ordering half price drinks and there was this very uniquely spiced nut mix on the table that you couldn’t stop eating if you tried.

you cannot go wrong at Reserve.
I have been for lunch and dinner (happy hour too)
the service is great, generous lunch portions and drinks are perfect for the price.
highly recommend this
Reserve is my new favorite thai place.

Reliable cheap Thai food with great drink specials.

Found this on Unilocal when we didn’t want to wait around for Cask. This is pretty close to my apartment but I’ve never noticed it before. It was pretty empty around 7 on a Tuesday night — I think only two other tables were occupied. The food surpassed expectations, and Allagash white for half priced happy hour? Yes, please!
Not sure why this is called tapas when their tapas section is basically a normal appetizer section.
We stuck with the tapas. The spring rolls were pretty standard. The fried taro was quite good, though a bit lukewarm. They have a version of chive pancakes, but I found them a bit lacking in chives, and the pancake portion was made of some form of sticky flour. Still tasty nonetheless. The som thum papaya salad was decent as well.
I don’t think anything here will really surprise you, but it’s better than it looks, and definitely better than many of the other food options in the area.

If you’re looking for a quiet, casual place to eat in Kips Bay, Reserve is the place. Next to Tonic East, Reserve is a tiny little Thai tapas restaurant and wine bar. My friend Feng and I tried this place randomly for lunch.
They have really good specials for lunch for like $ 7 and I think if you add something like $ 5, you can get a glass of red or white wine with your meal. The special comes with an entrée, salad and appetizer. We quickly ordered a glass of red to accompany our lunch. Feng and I had the chicken Thai basil fried rice which was really tasty and good sized. We also ordered the duck wraps and crispy crab cakes which were both decent. To finish off our meal we had the lava cake which was the best part!
Overall, the service is pretty good. The food was a good value for lunch time. I personally don’t think the red wine was that good but it was just house wine for $ 5 so we couldn’t really complain. Reserve is a cute Thai tapas wine bar that is a good deal to come for lunch. Haven’t been for dinner yet, but maybe sometime in the near future!

On my ever expanding search to find cheap places for lunch in the area I work in I came across Reserve which labels itself as a Thai-​Inspired Wine Bar. Saw the sign outside promoting a $ 7 lunch special so I jumped right in.
You get a choice of entrée, salad, and appetizer. Went with the pad thai with chicken, salad, and vegetable dumplings. While waiting for my food I noticed how chill and laid back this place is. Soft rock was playing quietly overhead. A few other people eating and reading books. I felt like I was in a library. Servers were attentive and came by to fill my water glass when needed.
I must say that for $ 7 they do feed you good here! Salad and dumplings were a decent size to start, but that bowl of pad thai just about put me in a food coma. It was really tasty, and well presented. It was almost like a deep dish serving that never seemed to end. Fresh and hot, with good ingredients. Lots of chicken, sprouts, crushed peanut. I waddled out of there full and relaxed.
On way out I was handed a punch card good for a free drink after your seventh drink purchase. Definitely a low key place to try out after work with friends one night. Also has a terrific lunch special!

GREEN CURRY PIZZA!
Do I have your attention now? Why have I not thought of this? Genius! The classic flavors of Thai green curry atop a nice soft crust. The curry was not too spicy, but it’s got just enough kick to it that it doesn’t overpower your palette. This was the one of the best dishes of the night.
The other was the Massamun Curry. It was probably the best massamun curry I’ve had in a while. The potatoes were perfectly cooked (cooked but not too soft or falling apart), the flavors were perfectly balanced.
I love that everything is served Tapas-​style, so that you can try a number of different small plates and experiencing a wide variety of different flavors. We also had the Duck Wraps, Roast Duck over rice, the original curry puff and the basil chicken curry puff, Gratong Tong, and the crabcake. Everything was beautifully presented and delicious!
Service here was friendly and attentive. Our water glasses were never empty and we felt like we were well taken care of.
I highly recommend saving room for dessert, especially when mangoes are in season! The Coconut Rice with Ripe Mango for dessert was the absolute perfect way to complete the meal.