Chicken Green Curry
The default order for thirty years of students. Order it at 3 chillies and be honest with yourself.
Thai · Downtown Yonge
Salad King
Student-priced Thai with a heat scale that goes further than you will
ThaiDowntown Yonge, Toronto$Details being confirmed
The review
Salad King has fed a generation of students off Yonge Street and has never pretended to be anything more than that. The cooking is consistent, cheap and quick, and the chilli scale — which runs politely from one to twenty — is the thing everyone remembers.
Green curry is the default and the right one. Crispy basil chicken is the sleeper. Pad thai exists for whoever you brought who does not want to be adventurous. Nothing here is going to change your understanding of Thai food; everything here will be exactly what you expected, for very little money.
Honest notes: it is loud, it is communal seating, and it is full at every lunch hour. Three chillies is more than most people think. Twenty is not a challenge, it is a warning.
What to order
Pad Thai
Not the point of the menu, but the version everyone brings a first-timer for.
Crispy Basil Chicken
Fried, sweet, aggressively basil-forward.
What works
- Genuinely cheap for the location
- Heat scale is real and clearly labelled
- Communal tables move fast
What doesn’t
- Cooking is consistent rather than exciting
- Communal seating is not for everyone
- Rammed at every lunch hour
Verdict
Green curry at 3 chillies, crispy basil chicken, communal table. Cheap and dependable.