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Our favorite Thai place adds a new location ... in Montclair, across from the Wellmont. Good value, good taste and a most gracious owner. Try the Barista soup.
399 Bloomfield Ave., Montclair
973.509.2110/2117
Open for dinner seven days a week and lunch every day except Monday.
I don't mean to denegrate the other reviewers who have nothing but good things to say about this place, but in the interests of fairness and honesty, I felt the need to post my Spice II experience here.
A few weeks ago, I decided to try one of the new thai places in town, and settled on Spice II- I phoned in, placed my order, and fifteen minutes later, I returned to my apartment with a beef red curry in tow.
It was absolutely wretched.
The meat was plainly spoiled, and had a gamy taste and a crumbly, powdery texture that usually comes from a piece of meat being freezer-burnt. The curry itself was tasteless and bland, despite my explicitly ordering it to be "hot." The bamboo shoots were clearly from a can, and were mushy and unappealing.
The worst part was the rice. After spooning a bit of the red curry over a pile of the rice, it was instantly transforned into a gooey mush.
After eating two bites, I was nauseous and disgusted, and couldn't continue. I tossed the rest of my 16-dollar meal in the garbage.
This was the worst thai food I've ever had in my life- take the above glowing reviews with a HUGE grain of salt.
Spice II- DINER BEWARE!
I'm wondering if the previous poster was mistaken and wrote their review for the wrong restaurant.
We've been to Spice's Bloomfield location and Spice II's new Montclair location numerous times and have always been pleased with the food and service.
One of the reasons we love Spice so much is that the food is so reasonably priced. Beef dishes hover around $10 not $16 as eblumrich suggests.
Most recently, we went to Spice II and ordered panang chicken, fried rice, and laad nar. All dishes were fresh and flavorful. The panang is my favorite and I make sure to order it every time.
Ditto above comment. We have eaten there approximately half a dozen times since they opened in Montclair and have always had consistently good food. We just had the salmon panang and chicken massaman curry on New Year's Eve. Both dishes were great. We've never tried their take-out. We always eat there and have found the owner to be extremely gracious and accommodating.
No- I'm re-posting to re-iterate that I was writing about Spice II.
The awful beef curry I ordered was, indeed, around 10 bucks. I also ordered some dumplings which were fair, at best, which brought the order to 16 dollars.
It's all well and good you've had good experiences there. I'm simply posting my experience, as what happened to me will invariably happen to someone else, as I find it hard to believe I got the only bad curry and only bad rice these people have ever served.
I've been a fan of thai food for well onto 25 years, and spice II was the worst I've ever had.
To eblumrich: I urge you to give the restaurant another try. I ate there (again) over the weekend w/ my boyfriend who ordered (and loved) the red curry. In fact, we loved everything we ordered. The very pleasant owner sought out our opinion about the red curry, and she brought up your review in horror and embarrassment. If you bought your food at this restaurant, I'm sure it was a one-time occurrence and she would be eager to prove you wrong. She is an extremely gracious woman who takes pride in her food.
Try the veggie puffs!