NYCReview
We were really excited for a second when we hit Marc Forgione’s new restaurant in Tribeca, Khe-Yo. At first, it seemed like this place was going to be our very own Little Serow, a much-celebrated Northern Thai restaurant in Washington D.C. that is our undisputed favorite dining destination in that city. We’ve been aching for a spot like that in this town.
Generally, we liked this restaurant. It’s a nice place with nice people, and we really loved a lot of the food that we ate, mostly in the first half of our meal. Which brings us to our overall point. Khe-Yo feels like something of a half measure. The beginning of this menu is everything we love about the food from Southeast Asia. It’s shareable, full of flavor, and often best eaten with your hands. The Crunchy Coconut Rice and Duck Laap salad particularly blew our minds, and the Pork Belly and Shrimp Crispy Rolls didn’t suck either.
And then we got to the entrees. Maybe it’s because they haven’t quite figured out the formula in the kitchen, but for some reason the entrees in this restaurant really run into problems. Our Pork Jowl Red Curry was so salty that it was inedible, and even if it wasn’t, the pork jowl bits were more like rubbery little fat nuggets than they were delicious pig face meat. The same goes for our sodium-crusted Lemongrass Spare Ribs that we could barely finish. The Bell & Evans Grilled Half Chicken wasn’t bad, though it also wasn’t particularly remarkable, and the Chili Prawns were about on par with any above-average shrimp dish in Chinatown. Thank god for sticky rice.
Our ultimate assessment of Khe-Yo is that they should have gone all the way. It feels like the chef felt compelled to create a menu of entree dishes to appease the locals, rather than fully committing to the idea of many small dishes to be shared at the table and eaten with glorious handfuls of glutinous rice. But who knows? Maybe a half measure is exactly what this Tribeca neighborhood wants. Either way, it looks like we’re going to have to keep making trips to DC.