Celadon Thai Restaurant – Latham, NY

I’ve been sampling Pad Thai at a number of local places. I’ve found that it’s a dish I really enjoy. The noodles. The vegetables. The range of flavors in the sauce. The heat. I just love it.

I have heard pretty much nothing but platitudes about Celadon Thai which popped up in the former home of the Roman Pub in Latham, pretty much across the street from Ala Shanghai on Troy Schenectady Road. I used to live a couple of miles down the road in Watervliet, so I figured it would be a fun trip to check out a new place in the old neighborhood.

Celadon Thai Menu

Inside, the restaurant is very new, kind of like a home dining room just after a renovation. Unless there is a separate room I didn’t see, the dining area is fairly small for the scope of the menu. With 12 parties of 4, it would make for a cozy experience. It’s cute though.

Appetizers

To start, I ordered the Tofu Delight 8 (Deep fried tofu served with a side of crushed peanuts in sweet & sour sauce – $5.95).

Tofu Delight 8

Tofu Delight 8

It looked great, and that’s about as far as that went. These were completely tasteless. If you’ve ever come across someone who says they don’t like tofu, it’s because they expect something like this. The peanut sweet and sour sauce was quite good, but rolled off the tofu as I dunked it. The only way I could come up with to get all of it in one bite was to tear a bit of the fried tofu, put it on a spoon, and drizzle some sauce onto the spoon. I won’t be ordering this again.

Pad Thai Menu

I was hopeful that my Pad Thai would be a better experience. I ordered the combo (chicken, pork, beef, shrimp – $15) as hot as it comes.

Combo Pad Thai

Combo Pad Thai

Shrimp in Combo Pad Thai

The pad Thai was very good. They take the “shrimp” claim on the menu pretty serious as there was just one shrimp, with half of a tail on it, no less. It was sweeter than most I’ve had, and the spice level was pretty tame. It’s almost like they have their menu set toward a less experienced diner. The best part of the dish was the doneness of the noodles. Usually, noodles in pad Thai get cooked to oblivion between the boil and the stir fry. Their rice noodles were al dente.

While our server took our order, I took note of the pen she was using. It seems like a strange thing to focus on, I know, but it was actually visually striking. It was so striking that I was compelled to pay with my credit card and ask to use the pen.

Fun pen

She obliged.


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7 thoughts on “Celadon Thai Restaurant – Latham, NY

  • Pirate Jeni

    Interesting. We’ve eaten there twice and had a very different experience. It was all well seasoned and I had several shrimp in my pad thai. Maybe you hit them on an off day? We are getting takeout on Friday. I’ll let you know how it is.


    • derryX

      Like I said, I’ve heard nothing but great things, but they stumbled along the way for me. That tofu is one of the worst dishes I’ve ever ordered.


  • Fisher

    Since you’re familiar with Watervliet, please check out Sadudee Thai on Broadway. http://www.sadudeethaifood.com/ We much prefer both the food and the service at Sadudee. We’ve loved everything we’ve ordered there (except the chicken wings, which weren’t bad, but weren’t worth getting again). Standouts have been the khao soi and the crispy duck.


  • Fisher

    Since you’re familiar with Watervliet, please try Sadudee Thai on Broadway: http://www.sadudeethaifood.com/
    We prefer both the food and service at Sadudee over Celadon. We’ve loved everything we’ve tried — standouts are the crispy duck and the khao soi. The only thing we’ve said we would not order again was the chicken wings — not bad, just not great either.


    • Masticating Monkey

      Sadudee is great, and they really don’t cater to the bland palate, as I’ve also found was the case at Celadon (just try their papaya salad, for instance–so spicy, so sour!). It is a bit out of the way compared to Celadon–I wish they were located near Latham Circle instead, for the sake of their business. Sadudee is definitely superior food-wise, though, I’d say!


  • Fisher

    Ack…I kept getting error messages and managed to double-post. Sorry!!



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