Gasalong Thai opens in Great Neck

Great Neck is already the place to go for Chinese food and sushi, but a new restaurant is making it a hotspot for regional Thai food as well. Gasalong Thai opened last month after a process that took more than a year.

The stylish restaurant serves dishes from Thailand's northern city of Chiang Mai, joining other new wave Thai restaurants, like JaydSiri and Prode down the street in Little Neck. 

The three are similar in that they all have sophisticated design elements, and approachable menus with a few hard-to-find dishes. While JaydSiri focuses on Northeastern Isaan region, known for its bright and herbal and often spicy flavors, Gasalong's Northern Thai dishes have noticeable similarities with neighboring China. Perusing the menu, I was struck by ingredients like bacon and Chinese sausage, which aren't typically found on local Thai menus.  

There's also a selection of clay pot dishes, which are known for being a signature of Hong Kong. The goong ob woon sen ($24) consists of glass noodles that are steamed in a clay pot with shrimp and bacon slices. The dish itself tasted like it would be right at home at a Cantonese restaurant, if not for the feisty lime fish sauce they provided on the side, which tasted unapologetically Thai. (Not to mention, the shrimp were just perfectly cooked.) 

The biggest find of the afternoon was a plate of phenomenal kanom jeeb dumplings, which go by the name Gasalong dumplings on the menu ($11). But the dumplings are hard to find locally, but actually a well-known Thai riff on Cantonese siu mai, the pork and shrimp wonton dumplings at dim sum houses. The Thai dumplings are known for being slightly more aromatic than the Chinese versions that spawned them, and I often find them to be packed more loosely, so the meat tastes more crumbly, like a porky meatball. 

25 Middle Neck Rd., Great Neck, 516-956-7899. Open noon to 10 p.m. daily.