A new Thai restaurant called Ob Uan has opened on the Upper East Side, and it’s taken over a corner space that another Thai restaurant left behind.
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Ob Uan is now open at 1479 First Avenue at East 77th Street, the former home of Spice. East Side Feed reported in July that Spice had closed, and at the time it wasn’t clear what would come next for the corner.The name is Thai. According to the restaurant’s website, Ob Uan describes “an atmosphere that overflows and lingers with happiness,” a blend of sights, aromas, flavors and energy tied to a happy feeling or memory. The restaurant compares it to the smell that hangs around a house where someone’s been cooking all afternoon.
The kitchen works from recipes that come from the places the restaurant’s family calls home, spanning the north, northeast, center and south of Thailand. The specials are each tied to a specific province, and the restaurant says they’re cooked the way they’re made there rather than blended into one kitchen’s version of Thai food.
From Phrae in the north, there’s khao soy gai ($25), curry noodles with chicken, pickled mustard greens and a crispy noodle topping. Khon Kaen in the northeast is represented by somtum gai yang ($26), a green papaya salad with deboned grilled chicken, sticky rice and jaew sauce. From the south, gaeng pu ($30) is a crab curry from Surat Thani served with vermicelli noodles, and gaeng massaman nuer ($32) is slow-braised beef in massaman curry from Songkhla, which the menu calls a secret recipe. A Lopburi dish of grilled fish and rice tossed with chili, shallot, lemongrass and makrut lime leaves, khao ka-yhum pla ($29), is described on the menu as a childhood dish.
The rest of the menu includes curries, noodles, sautéed dishes and fried rice, starting at $19 to $20 with a choice of protein. Pad Thai is $19, and a crab fried rice goes for $30. Appetizers include look chin ping ($14), homemade chicken meatballs with a tamarind sauce, and kratong crispy duck ($16), which is crispy rice paper topped with duck, mango, apple and pineapple. Dishes are marked for spice level, and vegetarian and gluten-free items are labeled. The online menu also has an allergen chart.
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Signature cocktails are $17 and lean on Thai ingredients. The Uang Kham is made with sticky-rice rum, mango, lime and coconut, and the Champa combines Japanese whisky with pandan, longan syrup and oak smoke. Mocktails are $12, beers are $8 and include Chang and Singha, and desserts ($16) are built around Thai tea ice cream, served with a brownie or a warm taro puff.Weekday lunch specials run Monday through Friday from 11:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. and include one appetizer, one entrée and one house drink, starting at $17.
Ob Uan is open Monday through Friday from 11:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. and 5 to 9:30 p.m., and Saturday and Sunday from 11:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. Reservations are available through OpenTable. The restaurant can be reached at 646-329-6692 and is on Instagram at @obuannyc.
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