The Thai Street Food eatery Vienna’s been waiting for

Get excited about this one, people – we’re serious.

The 15th district is known for many things, but trending food spots aren’t typically among them. True foodies do, however, have damn good reason to venture out here for a night to this tiny spot that has already convinced the local many a’ Thai food lovers.

Having opened at the end of this summer, ALL REIS Bangkok Street Food truly delivers on its ‘street food’ promise – even thought the food comes on fancy plates.

The kitchen is in plain sight, and diners sit closely together at communal tables, which creates a social space that the friendly staff also contributes too. Seating is so limited, and the buzz is so high for this place lately that the wait can take anywhere between 30 minutes to an hour for a seat. Plus – here comes the real cultural shock – they don’t take reservations. Yep, its the only negative words you can find in online reviews, because, trust us – All Reis is worth the wait.

For such a small place, All Reis certainly has a lot of items on its menu. Its first pages are dedicated to the different kinds of rice and noodles you can have with your dish, from whole grain Jasmine rice, to white or brown sticky rice, and noodles coming in different grades of thickness.

Then it takes you through a list of starter soups, like the famous sour and spicy soups of Thailand, the Tom Yum and Tom Ka, and appetisers like Thai spring rolls and a papaya salad. The menu moves onto a long list of noodle soup bowls (Thai Pho they call it), from classic beef variants to broths infused with coconut milk, or (why not) fresh pork blood. 

Deciding what to go for here is not easy. With all the hype going on about how good it is, we wanted to try all of our favourites. So we did.  The Tom Yum soup began the feast. As any restaurant that prides itself on authenticity, the subject of ‘how spicy do you want it,’ doesn’t come up. And we had no problem with this, even when a tear, or two fell between spoonfuls of the red broth. This shrimp soup, complete with crisp veggies and intense lemongrass made the cut for one of the best one’s we’ve ever had, including the litres we ladled into our mouths on the streets of Bangkok.

Before even looking at the mains, we found ourselves reminiscing about our individual backpacker experiences in Bangkok and beyond, remembering Thai food markets and some hostel tales we’d rather not bring up here (we were really young back then, ok?).

The Thai radio playing in the background helped in transporting us back there.

You can choose your meat (or your tofu) with all of the fried rice and noodles dishes, whether it’s the Phad Tai, the Pad-Si-ew or one of the curries.

We went for the crispy duck with Thai basil, which reaffirmed the Thai’s place as flavour champions of the world for us. We also couldn’t resist the classic Thai Green Curry, which was so “classic,” and like the real deal that we couldn’t tell what half the veggies swimming in the smooth, green, coconut broth were.

Both dishes came with fluffy white rice and beautiful flavours. Spicy, you ask? Oh absolutely! we answer, with a big Thai grin. Nothing that a cold sip of Chang beer can’t wash down.

You know that feeling when you’ve already eaten too much – you’re belly is bulging and your starting to develop a food sweat – but the food is so good you just can’t stop yourself from ordering dessert? Well, there was not even a pang of guilt when we demanded the menu back from the waiter after our mains and yelled after him – ‘the mango sticky rice! For the love of God, bring us the mango sticky rice!’ It was as magnificent as back in those Bangkok backpacker days when we…wait, we said we’re not going to talk about those confusing times. What happens in Bangkok, stays in Bangkok. Except the food…keep that happening stuff coming our way!